The Oxford Farming Conference

From January 2021, and with no trade deals concluded (apart from with Japan), UK farmers face global competition in all sectors – meat, dairy, fresh produce, poultry, ornamentals, arable – in home and export markets. Join us live as the former Prime Minister of Australia and appointed adviser to UK Board of Trade, Tony Abbott and NFU President, Minette Batters, discuss what this means for the future.

In 1990, when Farmers in Competition was last the theme of the OFC, the discussion was about price and producer support. These will be lost post-Brexit, and proposed new farm support schemes are focused on ‘public goods’, which may exclude food production. The future deals to be brokered may eliminate trade barriers, arguably allowing the UK and other countries to play to their comparative advantages, specialising in what they produce, so boosting productivity and benefitting consumers. In agricultural supply chains, such comparative advantages could be climatic, soils, skills, water, cheaper labour or sheer scale.

But the effect of unfettered free trade on UK farming, food, rural communities and the British countryside could be significant and possibly irreversible.

SPEAKERS:

• Tony Abbott – former Prime Minister of Australia, appointed adviser to UK Board of Trade
• Minette Batters – President, National Farmers Union

CHAIR:

MD of Hugh Lowe Farms Ltd and OFC Director, Marion Regan