{"id":191448,"date":"2025-06-17T10:35:09","date_gmt":"2025-06-17T10:35:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/191448\/"},"modified":"2025-06-17T10:35:09","modified_gmt":"2025-06-17T10:35:09","slug":"farmers-call-for-uk-animal-welfare-rules-to-be-upheld-in-gulf-states-deal-farming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/191448\/","title":{"rendered":"Farmers call for UK animal welfare rules to be upheld in Gulf states deal | Farming"},"content":{"rendered":"

A trade deal with Gulf states could severely undermine British farmers by allowing the importation of low-welfare meat, the National Farmers\u2019 Union has said in a letter to the prime minister.<\/p>\n

The UK is close to signing a \u00a31.6bn trade agreement with Gulf states \u2013 Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates \u2013 amid deep dissatisfaction from farming and animal welfare groups over an expected deal for food imports.<\/p>\n

Human rights groups have also criticised the proposed deal for making no concrete provisions on workers\u2019 rights, modern slavery or the environment.<\/p>\n

Last week, the business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, said there would be \u201cchapters in that agreement\u201d on human rights that were not legally binding. \u201cYou don\u2019t have that in trade deals, but it\u2019s important you have that ethos and that approach reflected,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Farmers\u2019 groups have told the prime minister, Keir Starmer, that the deal with the Gulf Cooperation Council would go against a commitment he made at the National Farmers\u2019 Union (NFU) conference to protect high welfare standards, saying that the way most poultry is produced in Gulf states would be illegal in the UK.<\/p>\n

The Guardian has reported previously<\/a> that the deal included uncapped access to the UK\u2019s poultry market for chicken meat if imports meet UK hygiene standards. However, meeting these checks does not mean meeting UK animal welfare standards.<\/p>\n

The NFU president, Tom Bradshaw, said: \u201cBalanced and mutually beneficial trade deals can provide a real economic boost, including for farm businesses. A modern trade deal with the GCC, if fair and balanced, could offer huge potential for agricultural exporters.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut, as always, this balance depends on the government upholding its commitments to not allow greater market access for food imports which have been produced in ways that are illegal here. This would undermine Britain\u2019s reputation for high animal welfare standards that our producers deliver, and consumers value and rightly expect.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the trading bloc \u201conly seems to have basic welfare provisions, which fall well short of the robust species-specific legislation in place in the UK\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s vital the government takes the same balanced approach it took with the recent India and US trade agreements. This is the next test to see if the government will stand strong and protect the standards our country demands and values,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Farmers have minimum standards to reach in terms of space for birds to live in, and there is mandatory pre-slaughter stunning in most cases.<\/p>\n

In the six Gulf countries involved in the deal, poultry must be slaughtered according to halal principles, though stunning is sometimes used. Poultry is often raised in intensive indoor systems, especially given the region\u2019s harsh heat.<\/p>\n

The deal, led by the trade minister, Douglas Alexander, is likely to be particularly beneficial for the car industry and financial services, though estimates suggest a free trade agreement would be worth less than 1% of GDP by 2035.<\/p>\n

Trade with the six-member bloc is worth about \u00a359bn a year, according to UK government estimates, as the UK\u2019s seventh-largest export market, with a trade deal expected to increase trade by about 16%.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A trade deal with Gulf states could severely undermine British farmers by allowing the importation of low-welfare meat,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":191449,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3843],"tags":[728,70,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-191448","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114698264507845173","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191448"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191448\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/191449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}