Despite the defeat of an amendment put forward to require agricultural and food imports after Brexit to meet equivalent domestic standards, the UK Agriculture Bill does contain particular Clauses that will benefit Welsh and UK Agriculture in different ways.
Now that the Bill has received Royal Assent, red meat levy payments will become more transparent in order to take the slaughter of Welsh livestock in England into account.
It’s now 15 years since the FUW told the Radcliffe Review of the levy boards that levy money paid by Welsh farmers for livestock slaughtered in England should be available to HCC, not what is now AHDB. Since then the annual losses to England of ‘Welsh’ levy money have increased by hundreds of thousands - most notably as a result of the closure of Welsh Country Foods in Geirwen and the resulting diversion of livestock to English abattoirs. It is estimated that this move will return more than £1 million from English abattoirs back to Wales and Scotland.
Until now, the three boards have worked together on a collaborative programme to support the British meat industry which more recently included the “Make It” campaign to encourage consumers to purchase red meat in an attempt to offset the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic - which was a resounding success.
Once approved by the devolved Ministers, the new scheme will enable the red meat levy to be paid based on the location where the animal was reared rather than the country of slaughter, an approach which is welcomed by the Farmers’ Union of Wales and the three levy boards - Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB), Meat Promotion Wales, Hybu Cig Cymru (HCC) and Quality Meat Scotland (QMS).
It is believed that the new scheme will be in place by April 2021 to replace the current collaborative fund however, the three boards plan to maintain a proportion of collaborative work going forward.