Brexit Hub

A Food Commission made up of industry professionals could make a valuable contribution to the UK’s post-Brexit trade talks, a leading expert has said.

A few years ago, our plan was to mitigate the loss of direct payments through diversification, but poor weather and prices mean that additional cash is being used to keep the farm afloat today, says Cornish lamb and beef farmer Rona Amiss.

The Government’s post-Brexit agriculture reforms provide an opportunity for farms to become more prosperous, but those who resist the push to become ‘park keepers’ risk being the first to go out of business, says independent consultant Derrick Wilkinson.

The Agriculture Bill has potential to deliver for the environment, but the Government’s insistence on penny pinching during the transition period is likely to drive the farmers needed to implement the policy out of business, says Tim Farron MP, Lib Dem farming spokesman.

Labour has not always done the best job of speaking for the countryside, but farmers need us to raise their concerns now more than ever, because uber-loyal Tories afraid of Number 10 won’t, says Shadow Defra Secretary Luke Pollard.

The Government’s immigration policy is xenophobic and does not consider the needs of Scottish farmers and crofters, says John Finnie, Green MSP for the Highlands and Islands.

Selling on the deadweight gives control to buyers, but if all slaughter stock was sold at auction, competition and prices would almost certainly increase, says Neil Farmer, an arable and sheep farmer from the Herefordshire-Worcestershire border.

The House of Lords will test the Government’s commitment to protecting standards in trade deals, with peers almost certain to add a new clause to the Agriculture Bill, says Bristol East Labour MP Kerry McCarthy.

New Farming Minister Victoria Prentis writes exclusively for Farmers Guardian on why she’s so excited to work at Defra during such a key time of change for UK agriculture.

Brussels provided more protection for UK farmers in a world of bullying super-powers than Conservative MPs realised, says Labour’s Shadow Farming Minister Daniel Zeichner.