Beef and Brexit prosperity

There is scarcely anywhere in Europe you can go without seeing “Aberdeen Angus” and “Hereford” beef advertised, used in conjunction with — or as substitute — noun for premium. British beef breeds are the global pedigree, which came about in large parts as a result of how much we care about beef in our diet and culture. With this in mind, it must be asked; why has the price of beef been allowed to rise so high?

A pack of 750g 15% beef mince in Tesco now sets you back £7.10. This wholly unacceptable current state of affairs is the perfect example of how, post-Brexit, we have remained glued to the European Union on a policy basis — and should serve as a reminder that, now that we have left, we can stop diverge at any time — and in doing so, unleash a great era of prosperity for our nation.

The way the EU has gone about reducing cattle production is entirely characteristic of how it tends to operate: through a directive—specifically, the Nitrates Directive. Introduced in 1991, the directive ostensibly aims to prevent pockets of hypoxic water in rivers streams and lakes from breaking out. These occur when excess nutrients—primarily from fertiliser, with livestock farming a key source—trigger algal blooms, depleting oxygen levels in the water and suffocating aquatic life.

As is typical of the EU, the directive does not itself rewrite national law; instead, member states are obliged to amend their own legislation to bring it into line. They are usually granted long transition periods and, at the outset, a patchwork of exemptions—measures that serve both to ease implementation and to scatter any potentially effective resistance too thinly to be of any use. 

The exemptions in this case came in the form of “Nitrates Derogations”. The Nitrates Directive states that all farms must be producing a maximum of 170kg of manure per hectare in areas of “poor water quality”. But Denmark, The Netherlands and Ireland — three of Europe’s largest cattle producers — were given Nitrates Derogations which allowed them to go produce as much as 250kg of manure per hectare. Starting in 2023, however (based on legislation from 1991!) they were given notice that these Nitrates Derogations were to finally be bought down to the 170kg limit. 

The consequence to this has been downsizing of herds, particularly in the Netherlands: the easiest method of becoming compliant with the stricter limit is buying more land to maintain the same herd size and using the extra land to decrease your per capita footprint. This is markedly difficult in the Netherlands as land is more capital intensive, owing to the geographic size and population density.

Denmark and Ireland are comparatively lightly populated outside of their respective capital city regions. Yet even Ireland’s most famous cattle farmer, one Michael O’Leary, has been forced to purchase 2,000 acres of extra land for his cattle farming operation simply to be compliant with the legislation. This is simply not tenable in the Netherlands: nor is it in England.

The point here, however, is not to rehearse the case against the EU or relitigate Brexit, but to show how prosperity can be rebuilt, sector by sector, by unwinding regulatory alignment with it the EU.

When we left the EU, we kept the “Nitrate Vulnerable Zone” system, which enforces the 170kg kg/ha limit. 55% of land in England is subject to this regime. Although farms can apply for exemptions, these remain just that: exceptions. The underlying regulatory framework still artificially suppresses supply, making it harder for farms to turn a profit and for English people to put beef on the table. Sustained by little more than political inertia, it has got to go.

In addition, trying to set production artificially for ideological reasons is an inherently bad practice. It has scarcely succeeded when tried. But by abolishing herd limits and making British beef cheaper, the consequent consumption boost Britons would us look like West Berlin: a smaller, richer enclave set amid a larger, poorer Europe — outnumbered and encircled, as it once was by East Berlin and the GDR, whose citizens could only look on longingly at the prosperity just beyond the barrier their own system imposed.

An ideological argument for fertiliser limits on land does, of course, exist, but can be dismissed for two differing reasons. First, the EU has recently struck a trade agreement with South America that lowers barriers to beef imports. While nominal caps remain, as Europe’s own agricultural sector is steadily regulated into decline, its capacity to lobby for protection will erode. In any case, beef produced in England is far less culturally alien — and far less likely to provoke unease — than imports shipped from the other side of the world.

It is also worth noting that the war with Iran, the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, and the resulting shock to global fertiliser prices—even if temporary—will make it far harder, ideologically, for Brussels to argue in future that “overproduction” of fertiliser through natural means is inherently undesirable, should a clash over diverging regulatory standards arise.

The other side of the ideological coin in favour of nitrates restrictions is the environmental argument, but this seems to have taken a turn for the conspiratorial. Once upon a time, green politics used to be about warning about rising sea and river levels in a way that was at least scientifically presented. Now one of the most frequent narratives we hear from the green lobby is that the water supply is toxic. These dubious allegations have not only dominated the news cycle in England: one of the top 3 issues in the ongoing Danish General Election campaign  is the idea that the drinking water in Denmark is not safe enough for consumption, owing to nitrate content. It is noteworthy that that same 750g pack of 15% beef mince which is £7.10 in Tesco is £11.52 in an equivalent Danish supermarket.

There comes a time we must push back on this fanciful green lunacy, lest they keep pushing until we don’t produce any meat any longer. Europe can deindustrialise if it so chooses to, but this seems like a good point to me for us to draw a line in the sand, say no to artificial scarcity and yes to beef being affordable for the working man and his family on a regular basis. This is but one of many many industries in which we can use Brexit to push forward on divergent paths with Europe, creating wealth and becoming the West Berlin of the 21^st Century, surrounded but unbothered by the decadent East German-like European Union.