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.
Join us for this #OFCBitesize session which will focus on the theme of "Farmers in Competition". What might UK farmers face under the new proposed trade deals, and how will farmers in some sectors and countries successfully meet competition from lean and agile producers?
Speakers: (find out more about the speakers here)
- Tony Abbott – former Prime Minister of Australia, appointed adviser to UK Board of Trade
- Minette Batters – President, National Farmers Union
Chair: OFC Director, Marion Regan
Register
To watch the webinar, register here. You will receive an email with your unique joining link.
The November bitesize will take place on our new Remo conference platform. Access is strictly only by registration, your email address will act as your username for entry.
If you have not received the link by the day before the webinar, please contact secretariat@ofc.org.uk
About #OFCBitesize
#OFCBitesize is a series of one-hour events hosted virtually via our website at from 12.00 - 13.00 on the first Thursday of every month between June and December 2020, leading up to the 2021 virtual conference in January. View the full #OFCBitesize programme here.
The 2021 OFC, hosted as a digital one-day conference on 7 January 2021, will celebrate its 75th anniversary since the first conference was held in 1936. To commemorate the occasion, each webinar will focus on a conference title from the last seven decades and be chaired by one of the OFC Directors.
Join the conversation on twitter with #OFCBitesize
Points available for joining #OFCBitesize. Please email secretariat@ofc.org.uk to verify your attendance.
View the full programme
