The Foreign Secretary, the Rt. Hon. Dominic Raab is visiting Australia today and tomorrow: Foreign Office statement
A free trade agreement with Australia has received much less attention than one with the United States in terms of its impact on agriculture, but it could actually be greater. My concerns in the past have focused on exports on lamb and cheese, but I may have been focusing on the wrong target.
According to Wake up to Money on Radio 5 this morning, Australia is interested in beef exports, including hormone reared beef (which concerns me more than chlorinated chicken, although that is bad enough).
The writer visits an irrigation area in New South Wales
This figures as some years ago I was given a study tour by the Department of Agriculture in Australia. We visited a huge dry lot beef farm where our guide kept referring to the 'beasts'. No doubt they were properly looked after, but I don't think animal welfare activists would like what I saw. The entire output was going to Japan, but some of it could easily be sent to the UK.
I also visited a wine production area which relied heavily on irrigation (with consequent impacts on the Murray-Darling system). Australia is also interested in more access for its wines and claims that that could costs by £1 a bottle.
Much Australian wine is at the cheap end of the market (I have crossed the famous 'Jacobs Creek') although I have had some excellent wines from the Margaret River area of Western Australia. There is probably no real threat to the developing UK industry (I should declare that I am investor in Chapel Down in Tenterden, Kent).
It's livestock producers that should be concerned.'
Incidentally, according to The Times yesterday the Foreign Secretary is known in Whitehall as 'Dim Dom'. I am sure this is unfair, but I also know how tough and well-informed Australian negotiators can be.
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