The Scottish Agriculture Bill needs a sunset clause to stop Ministers being able to change policy without scrutiny over the coming decades, says Mike Rumbles, MSP for the North East of Scotland.
In promising to uphold the UK’s high food production standards, but refusing to explain how, the Government has displayed a failure of imagination on post-Brexit trade policy, says Tom Lancaster, acting head of land, seas and climate policy at the RSPB.
With the final take-up of the Pick For Britain scheme patchy, Government must come up with a ‘Plan B’ to ensure growers can continue to access enough labour after Brexit, says Daniel Zeichner, Labour’s Shadow Farming Minister.
Banning imports is an impractical and probably illegal idea which was always doomed to fail, but there are other ways to protect our domestic food standards, says Cambridgeshire Fens farmer Tom Clarke.
An amendment has been tabled to the Agriculture Bill which would allow the UK to break away from restrictive EU rules on gene editing.
New checks on food products entering Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK will present a ‘significant challenge’ for business, the Food and Drink Federation (FDF) has said.
Farmers Guardian has long campaigned for a change in the law around livestock worrying and, therefore, it is encouraging to see progress being made in Scotland with the introduction of the Livestock Worrying - Dogs (Protection of Livestock) (Amendment) (Scotland) Bill.
Turbulence caused by Brexit and the coronavirus is not going away, but there are some positive lessons which can be learned from both, says Sue Pritchard, chief executive of the Food and Farming Countryside Commission.
The Government’s failure to protect our standards in the Agriculture Bill was very disappointing, but UK farmers shouldn’t be too demoralised because they have high quality products to sell, says Andrew Robinson, head of agriculture at Armstrong Watson.
The mask has fallen. UK farmers have been betrayed by this Government, which promised to protect our food production standards in trade deals, says Leicestershire arable and beef farmer Joe Stanley.