The chlorinated chicken conundrum will run and run

According to the president of the National Farmers Union (NFU), Minette Batters: “To sign up to a trade deal which results in opening our ports, shelves and fridges to food which would be illegal to produce here would not only be morally bankrupt, it would be the work of the insane.”

If so, then it has to be said that there are an awful lot of mad people in the world, including in advanced economies such as the United States where animal welfare standards can be, generally, lower than in Britain. The issue is now in focus because of Brexit, and the need to secure new trade deals with the EU, the US and others.

There will be intense pressure from America for Britain to open up its domestic and industrial market for American produce. This would indeed include genetically-modified items, livestock reared with growth hormones and a liberal, prescribed, use of antibiotics, and the now-notorious chlorine-washed or lactic acid-washed chicken – all not currently allowed in the UK. Some of these items might also be imported from Australia, Canada and New Zealand, for example, under any new trade relationships negotiated with these countries.

Whereas in the past ministers have been clear that chlorinated chicken and GM food would not be permitted to be put on sale in Britain, or used by the food processing industry, the new secretary of state for the environment, food and rural affairs, George Eustice, has refused to guarantee that the ban on chlorinated chicken will continue. This concerns producer and consumer groups alike, because the point about washing chicken is that it is a fallback for intensive farming – so faecal matter, say, that accumulates in cramped indoor conditions can be removed at that stage in the process, rather than avoided in the first place. The US authorities say it is perfectly safe and millions of Americans eat chicken quite happily (as well as European tourists); the EU argues it means a higher incidence of food poisoning.

The talks with the United States are expected to be particularly tough, not least because of Donald Trump’s “America First” policy. His usual aim is to reduce any US trade deficit – and would include the £40bn (£31bn) deficit it runs with the UK.

Agricultural products – grains, fruit, meat, and poultry and so on – are major US exports, and usually feature prominently in any trade deal. Most recently, in the latest round of the US-China trade war, Beijing agreed to import more produce from the US in order to narrow America’s huge trade gap with China. On his trip to India, President Trump asked India to purchase a further $6bn of US food.

The problem for consumers is that they may never realise that they are consuming processed or prepared chlorine-washed chicken. If they sit down for a chicken jalfrezi, buy a steak and mushroom pie from a chippy or chicken sandwich at a burger bar, they may not be told what is in it. They may not even know if a chicken they buy from a supermarket has been reared in some vast horrific warehouse, because US trade representatives insist that any sort of “discriminatory” labelling is outlawed as a condition for a free trade deal. Without that, the British will not be able to sell more cars or compete in business services in America.

On the producer side, many UK farming products rely heavily on the EU market, from Welsh lamb to Scottish salmon, and if they faced the kind of punitive tariffs imposed by the EU, and then had to face low-cost foreign competition, they would be wiped out in months. Some will also be affected by the new points-based migration policy, if it restricts the supply of seasonal or permanent labour – meaning higher wages and/or lost production.

At least temporarily, UK agriculture would require a considerable subsidy to survive and attempt to adapt to new conditions. It might offer an opportunity for the rewilding or reforestation of tracts of the countryside – a controversial idea.

The EU’s attitude to importing food from the UK will be also coloured by what other deals the UK strikes with other countries – and the British say they will negotiate simultaneously with the EU and the US. So if the British look to be allowing tariff-free access to US exports of beef, say, then EU produce would be priced out of the UK market, and Brussels might wish to “retaliate” for its lost trade in the UK by imposing its tariffs on certified-UK beef exports (the common EU external tariff already stands at up to 160 per cent).

Although “food security” was sometimes used an argument for joining the EU back in the 1970s, and it is often asserted now that Britain should feed itself, the truth is that since the industrial revolution, the UK has not been self-sufficient in food.

Today, the UK grows about 60 per cent of the food it eats. Official sources sometimes quote a figure of 75 per cent but this excludes “non-indigenous” items such as exotic fruit – bananas and mangoes, tea, coffee and spices – foods that cannot be grown (either at all or on a meaningful scale) in the UK. Some 30 per cent of UK food currently comes from the EU, and about 10 per cent from elsewhere.

A loss of EU supplies in the short run would cause shortage and spike prices, but where EU imports can be substituted from other sources, the longer-term effect would be deliver lower prices for shoppers.

Farming represents a tiny proportion of the British economy. In 2018, agriculture contributed around 0.63 per cent to the United Kingdom’s GDP, 17 per cent came from the manufacturing industry, and 71 per cent from the services sector. (That is one reason why the European Common Agricultural Policy suited the UK so badly – Britain had only a tiny number of farmers to support, compared with France or Germany, and imported more of its food, which was taxed more heavily under the CAP.) Even with the “dig for victory” campaign in the last world war, when food was rationed and often in short supply thanks to enemy blockades, Britain still had to try to bring in much of what it ate, prioritising basics at the expense of the more exotic, such as bananas, which disappeared for the duration.

The logic of Brexit suggests that the UK should be able to shop around the world for its food bargains, as it did during the high noon of free trade in the 19th century. The UK could, now it has “taken back control” simply abolish tariffs, quotas and other barriers to food imports (including labelling, animal welfare and rules about genetic engineering, hormones and antibiotics). That would certainly lower the cost of food, boosting consumers’ buying power and the value of real wages, especially for poorer people.

But there would be damage to British farmers, as the NFU senses only too well. In the era of free trade in food, more than a century ago, farming experienced extreme cyclical conditions of boom and bust, with long periods of depression decimating farm incomes, pushing rural dwellers into higher-paid work in the ever-eager factories in the cities, or else domestic service. Offering farmers subsidies, income support or guaranteed prices would soften the impact (depending on the generosity of such schemes), but would also take some of the edge off the gains from unrestricted trade in foodstuffs. Consumers are also far wealthier and more demanding than they were in the days of the British empire. And some of our trading partners would continue to demand far more favourable conditions as the price of a trade deal.

The conundrum of the chlorinated chicken will fox ministers and officials for some time to come.