Deidre Brock: Food might become one of the biggest issues in politics

Scotland’s food and drink industry has a turnover of £14 billion a year and growing. Exports have risen by 55%, hitting a record £6bn in 2017, and Scotland’s larder is an important part of a booming tourist industry at home as well. All of this is set to be derailed by Brexit.

A no-deal exit from the EU would mean whopping tariffs – around 40% on some foods – sending prices for our produce through the roof and killing our crucial European exports market. Food prices here will soar. The price of meat could double and dairy rise by 50%. It will damage the supply chain and leave fresh food rotting at the ports. The UK Government’s latest analysis said the impact on agriculture, forestry and fishing industries would hit Scotland hardest – twice as hard as England – slashing the economy by 8%

We’ll lose vital EU workers and won’t have a proper agricultural workforce without them. Picking crops and processing food in seasonal work is only a small part. There are the EU citizens driving the haulage vehicles that take fertiliser, animal feed and other supplies to farms and the ones that bring animals and crops away again.

Some 22,000 non-UK seasonal migrant workers work in the soft fruit and veg sector. Half the workforce in food and seafood processing are EU citizens. Almost all – 98% – of Food Standards Scotland’s official vets are EU nationals (and we’ll need a lot more vets for export checks after Brexit). NFU Scotland president Andrew McCormick warned we “cannot feed our nation without this labour”.

The UK will be scrabbling for trade deals – and the powerful US food lobby has already set out its stall: hormones in meat and milk which have been banned here for decades; cheap chicken washed in chlorine to make up for terrible animal welfare standards – something Brexiteers have said they are “absolutely fine” with. They also want to stop testing pork for parasitic worms.

The overuse of antibiotics in healthy animals will be extended in the UK while in the EU it is about to be banned. Brexiteers want to ditch the “precautionary principle” that protects public health and the environment by insisting you prove things are safe before you use them. Gone, too, will be our protections against GM crops.

A market flooded with cheap, low-quality imports would crush Scottish farmers unless they lowered their standards, too. Scotland’s farmers are improving their industry to protect biodiversity, welfare and health just now – force them into this race to the bottom and all that will be lost. High-quality Scottish food and drink serve us well, and we should be building on that. The EU’s protected geographical indicators (PGIs) have been a big part of that success story, covering the likes of Scotch Lamb and Arbroath Smokies. Michael Gove says he’ll being in a new British, system but his now former junior minister George Eustice made clear to me there are no guarantees and it will be a matter for trade deal negotiations.

Scotland the Brand is already under threat with the Saltire disappearing from shelves as supermarkets realign their merchandising. The overseas markets will also feel the cold winds of Brexit soon and PGIs might get thrown under the wheels of the Brexit bus.

Some folk seem to think it’ll be fine, we’ll simply eat our produce instead of exporting it, but animal feed, fertilisers, and other farming supplies are imported – mainly from the EU or under EU trade deals. So are the forage maize seed we use and much of the vegetable, herbage and oilseed rape is imported.

Take away access to the world’s biggest single market as well, or impose those tariffs, and Scotland’s food and drink sector faces pretty big challenges. Anyone who thinks farming and fishing are someone else’s problems faces a rude awakening. Food might be about to become one of the biggest issues in politics.