Cymraeg The Landworkers’ Alliance, a Farmers Union representing more than 1000 farmers, is campaigning to prevent food produced to standards lower than the UK from being imported. We are arguing that as well as protecting UK farmers from low standard imports, it can help improve the standards of production around the world whilst protecting farm workers from harmful pesticides.
In its refusal to protect British Standards in trade deals, the Government is leading on the argument that a UK ban on low standard imports would hurt developing nations. Liz Truss, the UK International Trade Secretary stated on Thursday in the House of Commons that “I don’t want to stop developing countries exporting their goods to us (even) if they don’t follow exactly the same farm standards as here in Britain”.
This is a spurious argument. The proposed amendment to the Agriculture Bill, does not stop countries exporting to the UK, it simply requires those exports to meet UK standards. High standards have the impact of driving standards up – which benefits both workers and the environment, and would be a benefit to farmers and agricultural labourers in the developing world.
High trade standards have been shown to improve farming practices, creating a safer working environment for agricultural labourers in developing countries. A fantastic example is that EU food safety standards banning the import of crops covered in certain pesticides initially led to the EU reducing their rice imports from India due to presence of pesticide residues. Analysis carried out by the Landworkers’ Alliance shows that nearly 60% border rejections in the UK for food and related produce between 2008-20 are from Nigeria and India. This forced some state governments in India take action to decrease pesticide usage so they could continue exporting. Eventually high standards led to 9 very dangerous pesticides being banned in Punjab, a state in India, so that it could meet EU standards. This is important to the poorest farmworkers because India’s official data shows more than 31,000 people died of pesticides just in 2019.
Therefore, to protect the poorest, it is important to raise our standards for the importation agricultural products. It will reduce pesticides and improve biodiversity and working conditions in developing countries. The same logic would apply to the improvement of animal welfare standards.
Jyoti Fernandes, Campaigns and Policy Coordinator for the Landworkers’ Alliance, said;
“Retaining UK’s high food standards is not only good for our consumers, but also helps developing countries in their shift towards safer farming practices. We are part of a global network representing over 200 million farmers- many in the developing world. We all seek higher to protect farmers lives, animal welfare and the environment we depend on. The lessons from Punjab in India show that the UK should be supporting programmes underway for rapid growth of organic farming in developing countries
Our analysis shows that the ‘requirement for agricultural and food imports to meet domestic standards being debated by MP’s in House of Commons will lead to better production and improve working conditions of farmers and workers in developing countries. We believe Trade Secretary Liz Truss is using the developing world as an excuse for allowing imports which fall below British standards, rather than acting out of genuine concern for the interests of farmers and agricultural labourers in the Global South.”
Kannaiyan Subramaniam of Indian Coordination Committee of Farmers Movements (ICCFM), said;
“The UK should continue to maintain high food safety standards. It is in the interest of developing countries and farmers to export food produced meeting those standards. Indian farmers are moving towards organic farming at an ever increasing rate. To support developing countries, the UK should rather consider stopping exporting pesticides like paraquat which are banned in the UK and still exported to India and other developing countries.”
The Landworkers’ Alliance are members of La Via Campesina which represents 200 million small scale farmers around the world.
