Mission impossible
Agriculture and Trade Minister Damien O'Connor is off to Europe soon to try and breathe some life into free trade talks between NZ and the UK, and NZ and the European Union.
A former Irish Prime Minister says even if the UK and EU manage to work out a deal over Brexit it will be very limited and cause a lot of disruption.
John Bruton, who is now the EU’s Ambassador to the USA, says under a deal or no deal, the extra time it will take for goods to clear customs between the UK and EU will lead to long lines of trucks queuing up at customs posts. He reckons the British people will quickly face major disruptions, higher prices for goods and an increase in the bureaucracy – all of which will annoy them.
Looking back on Britain’s involvement in the European Union, Bruton says the country saw itself as psychologically as being outside looking in, rather than actually being fully inside the union.
He believes this view was, to a degree, promoted by some sections of the British media and it was this scepticism of Europe that eventually led to the Brexit referendum and subsequently why the country decided to leave the EU.
“The basis of the argument for Britain leaving EU was that it would restore their sovereignty and they would become free again. But they never worked out in any great detail what they would do with their freedom and, to some extent, that is why they are now having difficulty negotiating the Brexit deal,” Bruton claims.
“They never worked out…the sort of relationship they would like to have with the European Union and that is the problem they still have today.”
Bruton says when the result of the Brexit referendum was known, no British politician wanted to appear in any way pro-European – they wanted a clean break.
He says the result is the fairly remote sort of trade agreement that is still being negotiated.
“They even talked about an Australian-type agreement, but without realising that Australia didn’t have an agreement with the EU, which could be code for no deal,” he says.
Bruton says one of his biggest worries about Britain leaving the EU is that this will lead to instability in the north of Ireland and that the 1998 Good Friday Peace Agreement will falter. He says there is a risk of instability in the north resulting from Brexit.
In the next days and weeks ahead, Britain and the EU will try and hammer out a deal before the end of the year – where a no deal is more than possible.
Bruton believes that secretly Boris Johnson may in fact want this. He says if there is a deal and it requires the support of the government, that could be a problem for Johnson to get everyone to agree.
One of New Zealand’s deepest breeder Jersey herds – known for its enduring connection through cattle with the UK’s longest reigning monarch, Queen Elizabeth II – will host its 75th anniversary celebration sale on-farm on April 22.
Rural trader PGG Wrightson has revised its operating earnings guidance, saying trading conditions have deteriorated since the last market update in February.
It's been a bumper season for maize and other supplements in the eastern Bay of Plenty.
Leading farmers from around New Zealand connected to share environmental stories and inspiration and build relationships at the Dairy Environment Leaders (DEL) national forum in Wellington last month.
AgriZeroNZ, a joint venture fast-tracking emissions reduction tools for farmers, is pouring $5 million in a biotech company to develop a low emissions farm pasture with increased productivity gains.
Fonterra is teaming up with wealth app provider Sharesies to make it easier for its farmer shareholders to trade co-op shares among themselves.