農業情報研究所＞農業・農村・食料＞欧州＞ニュース：20年10月19日
イギリス有機農民、EU離脱でEU市場を失う恐れ
UK farmers face a ban on exporting their products to the EU under the “organic” label from January 1 if the bloc
does not opt to recognise their certification after the end of the Brexit transition.
Farmers say time is running out to secure recognition and enable the continued flow of an estimated £225m a year
of organic exports on which the UK sector depends.
Uncertainty around exports from next year means that continental European customers have already begun to end longstanding deals with UK suppliers over concerns about recognition of regulations that
determine products that can be called “organic”.
“We are uniquely affected in terms of Brexit because we are one of fairly few industries that could face an
outright ban on trading, because we have a regulation that protects us,” said Lee Holdstock, trade relations manager at the Soil Association, the UK’s leading organic certification body.“It’s great to have that
regulation to protect consumers . . . but to have that protection in times like this makes you uniquely vulnerable.”
The UK’s organic sector, with £2.5bn of sales last year, accounts for a small proportion of the overall food and
farming industry but its growth has exceeded the broader food market, and it should benefit from a new subsidy regime promoting environmental goals.
It is also benefiting from a trend among consumers to embrace environmentally friendly and local food production.
UK organic sales are set to hit £2.6bn this year, the highest figure since certification began in 1973.
However, once the UK’s current trading arrangements with the EU conclude at the end of this year, the UK and EU
will need to recognise one another’s organic standards as equivalent — a process farmers believe ought to be simple, given they have operated under identical regimes for decades.