MUCH of the agri-political focus in the UK has been centred on the imminent "health check" of the common agricultural policy.
But any adjustments decreed by Brussels could prove a minor irritation compared with the declared intent of the World Trade Organisation's drive to remove many of the long-standing restrictions on international commerce in agriculture.
The issu
e is complex: talks have been on and off since 2001 in the so-called Doha Round of the WTO. But the basic theme is that the majority of major food-producing countries where the industry receives minimal government support is adamant that trade barriers should be dismantled as quickly as possible.
Almost every tonne of beef that enters the UK is subject to a considerable import levy – removal of this would put the entire industry at risk.
Production of beef in Scotland has been slipping since the 2005 reforms of the CAP and would inevitably fall further if Peter Mandelson, the European Union trade commissioner, agrees to what is up for discussion at the WTO talks scheduled for Geneva in the late summer.
However, the position in the Republic of Ireland is even more hazardous for a country that is almost 1,000 per cent self- sufficient in beef. Without exports, much of rural Ireland and its food production industry would simply wither and die.
That much was made clear yesterday by Padraig Walshe, president of the Irish Farmers Association, when he spoke exclusively to The Scotsman from his farm in Co Laois, where he runs a herd of 120 dairy cows and a sizeable beef enterprise.
He said: "If Mandelson has his way, we are looking at an absolute disaster that could see prices for prime cattle come down to as little as 2 (160p) per kilo deadweight. Not many farmers in Ireland are making a profit at your equivalent of 250p per kilo, but there is a real possibility that our suckler herd of 1.5 million cows would be totally decimated.
"The same could well happen for the dairy sector, where we have around one million cows. We simply could not compete with cheap imports of butter and milk powder."
The Irish electorate goes to the polls next month, when it will be invited to ratify the Lisbon Treaty on a modified EU constitution. The initial belief was that this would go through almost on the nod, but the IFA has recently urged its membership to use this opportunity to persuade Brian Cowen, the recently-appointed Taoiseach, that his government should not accept a WTO package that would impact severely on the countryside.
The view on this side of the water is that any deal that fails to take full concern of standards of food production and animal welfare that match EU regulations would have horrendous consequences.
James Withers, the chief executive of NFU Scotland, said: "We have heard some warm words this week from Mandelson when he gave evidence to the European Parliament about not selling out farming, but the proposals on the table are doing little to calm the concerns of farming organisations across Europe.
"We have to strike a balance between free trade and fair trade. There is a real danger that a deal of the kind being discussed could penalise the very producers that have striven to raise their production standards. They would have the rug pulled from under them as cheap imports undermine their good work."
However, the odds are growing that there will be no WTO deal this year. The US presidential election and the passing of a new farm bill, which will result in farmers receiving considerable compensation in the event of major crop failures, is unlikely to see Washington accede to anything that would affect the important rural vote of the Midwest.
But Withers still believes the farming world in the developed nations must remain vigilant: "This … is happening at a time of massive food security concerns. This is a global problem which risks being exacerbated if the European Commission does not recognise the issues as part of its discussions on a new agricultural trade deal."
