O’Connor has so far given only limited backing to the recommendation last month from the UK’s Trade and Agricultural Commission.
The commission was set up by British Trade Minister Liz Truss last July to advise her on how to go about negotiating post-Brexit export opportunities for British farmers without flooding their own market with cheap imports from countries with lower environmental and animal welfare standards.
Its recommendations are not yet British government policy.
O’Connor says the report’s recommendation that the UK should be opening up its market to rival producers was good news for New Zealand farmers, but he was wary of the environmental and animal welfare caveats that came with it.
“There are different perceptions on what is best animal welfare practice and so the idea of using this as a non-tariff barrier is a really tricky one, and not one that at this point I think needs to be included in trade negotiations,” O’Connor said.
He described the revelation that the commission had heard evidence that NZ animal welfare standards were equivalent to those found on British farms as “useful”, however, he says that was irrelevant to trade negotiations when such standards were not even recognised in the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) global trade agreements.
But former trade minister Lockwood Smith, who joined the commission as an expert on international trade, and helped write its final report, says it was wrong to say the report’s recommendations aimed to put non-tariff barriers in front of NZ exports to the UK.
“The first point the commission has made is that the UK should open its markets in agriculture to countries who have equivalent systems,” Smith said.
While it was correct that the 167 countries who were members of the WTO had not yet reached a consensus on animal welfare or environmental standards, he says that shouldn’t stand in the way of countries setting such standards for themselves in new trade agreements.
The Comprehensive and Progressive TransPacific Partnership (CPTPP), which NZ was a member of, and the UK wants to join, was an example of an agreement which included environmental standards which could be inserted in a UK-NZ trade deal.
Similarly findings by the British RSPCA that the welfare of animals on NZ farms was equivalent to their UK counterparts could be enough to set a standard on animal welfare, which could be included in a trade deal between the two countries.
“It doesn’t mean you have to have the same farming systems; that is where I think the minister has missed the point a bit,” he said.
“It is whether our systems produce an equivalent outcome in terms of animal welfare and, where possible, those considerations must be based on internationally-recognised standards of some kind.”
Smith accepted the debate would become academic if Truss didn’t adopt the report’s recommendations – although he was confident she eventually would.
“It will take an innovative approach to achieve the outcome that I think is possible,” he said.
“I am not pretending it will be easy but I see an opportunity if it is handled the right way.”
