UK: An increase in lamb imports should be stark warning to government

An increase of 17% in lamb imports during September and November 2022 should serve as a “stark warning” to the UK government that Welsh producers need safeguards, the Farmers’ Union of Wales (FUW) has said. The increase in lamb imports, revealed by 2022 UK trade data, is due to increased import volumes from New Zealand and Australia through trade deals, the union said. FUW president Glyn Roberts said ministers, MPs and Lords who where “supportive of the UK government’s liberal approach to trade negotiations with New Zealand and Australia” at the time, told the Welsh sheep industry to not be concerned. Roberts said the industry was told not to worry as the two countries were “well below the existing import quota limits and this was unlikely to change”. “We warned then that this was a naïve or deliberately misleading point of view that failed to take account of how global markets, exchange rates and other factors could rapidly change, leading to increases in import volumes that have ...