{"id":1536173,"date":"2025-05-15T10:30:00","date_gmt":"2025-05-15T14:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/?p=1536173"},"modified":"2025-05-15T10:30:00","modified_gmt":"2025-05-15T14:30:00","slug":"uk-farmers-fear-for-bioethanol-market-following-us-trade-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/uk-farmers-fear-for-bioethanol-market-following-us-trade-deal\/1536173\/","title":{"rendered":"UK Farmers Fear For Bioethanol Market Following US Trade Deal"},"content":{"rendered":"

UK Farmers Fear For Bioethanol Market Following US Trade Deal<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Via City AM,<\/a><\/p>\n

A recent trade deal between the UK and the US has led to the removal of tariffs on American bioethanol, which British farmers fear will undermine their domestic market.<\/p>\n

Concerns exist among beef farmers that the deal will result in increased American beef imports, leading to unfair competition and impacting their livelihoods.<\/p>\n

The trade agreement has sparked widespread scepticism among British farmers regarding the government\u2019s commitment to protecting their interests and the future of the agricultural sector.<\/p>\n

Ministers and commentators heralded the UK\u2019s trade deal with the United States as a political coup that will save thousands of jobs at British automakers. But changes to beef and bioethanol trade rules have left an already bruised agricultural sector fearing the worst, writes Ali Lyon.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

When he\u2019s not slavishly editing clips for the hundreds of thousands of people that subscribe to his Youtube channel, Olly Harrison has the not insignificant job of running 1,500 acres of farmland.<\/p>\n

But as his\u00a0impressively regular feed of videos<\/a>\u00a0illustrates, tending to that land \u2013 and trying to eke out a semblance of profit from it \u2013 has become a difficult, bordering on impossible task, as headwind after headwind hit his arable holding near Liverpool.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been rubbish,\u201d he tells City AM, still dealing with the aftermath of what was England\u2019s driest April on record.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve had extremes of weather, which has been very wet or \u2013 like now \u2013 very dry.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Added to recent years\u2019 inhospitable climes, are the input costs for producing the wheat his family has grown for five generations. They have, he says, remained at the elevated prices sparked by Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine. At the same time, the price he is able to secure for his end product has fallen by as much as 40 per cent since those 2022 supply-constraint-induced highs.<\/p>\n

But it is another, more recent, external shock that has Harrison especially worried. One that, while niche and esoteric, could kibosh the safety net he and his fellow British arable farmers have traditionally fallen back on when the wholesale wheat price drops too low.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Bioethanol: The little-known safety net of arable farmers<\/h2>\n

\u201cThe bioethanol market in the UK \u2013 for wheat \u2013 is quite big,\u201d <\/strong><\/em>Harrison says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s basically the floor in the market.\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Opening up the UK and US\u2019s agricultural markets to more trade was a key football in the frenzied negotiations that helped the Starmer administration become\u00a0the first country in the world to secure a trade deal with America since 2 April\u2019s \u2018Liberation Day\u2019.<\/a><\/p>\n

And to spur the States\u2019 capricious President into bringing down painful tariffs on Britain\u2019s export industries like automakers and plane parts, the government agreed to lower its own levies on a selection of American agriculture products; namely beef and the fuel.<\/p>\n

The beef tariffs were reduced only on imports that subscribed to the UK\u2019s world-leading food standards, leading some in the farming community to breathe a partial sigh of relief. But the bioethanol concessions \u2013 which saw the UK\u2019s 19 per cent tariff abolished completely \u2013 contained no such caveats to protect our sizeable domestic industry. That decision has already sparked warnings from key figures involved in domestic bioethanol production that their sector could be facing extinction.<\/p>\n

\u201cBioethanol, for me, is the watch area,\u201d <\/strong><\/em>Tom Bradshaw, president of the National Farmers\u2019 Union (NFU) tells City AM.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have been speaking to the bioethanol manufacturing sector\u2026 and we think [these changes] probably make it unviable.\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The prognosis from Bradshaw \u2013 whose assiduous campaigning around the recent inheritance tax reforms has already made him a regular thorn in the government\u2019s side \u2013 was echoed by the UK\u2019s two largest bioethanol producers over the weekend.<\/p>\n

The chief executive of London-listed AB Foods\u2019 sugar division, Paul Kenward, and Grand Pearson, the chairman of Ensus, both warned in a joint intervention<\/a>\u00a0their \u201cstrategically essential sector\u201d was under an \u201cexistential threat\u201d.<\/p>\n

All of which has left Harrison worried about what it will do to demand for his product. \u201cIf they can now bring it [ethanol] in from the States \u2013 using wheat that\u2019s grown a lot cheaper than we can because they get a lot more support off their government, using technologies that we can\u2019t, from farms that have got scale that we haven\u2019t \u2013 then that\u2019s seriously undermining a sector that\u2019s already on its knees,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

A hollowed out bioethanol sector also poses the risk of some unsavoury knock-on effects for livestock farmers, the very area of agriculture that the government sought to protect during its negotiations.<\/p>\n

Because just as Unilever sources its ingredients for Marmite from breweries \u2013 and the byproducts produced in the fermenting process \u2013 bioethanol producers sell one of their own high-protein outputs as feed for cows.<\/p>\n

As Bradshaw summarises: \u201cIf they\u2019re not making bioethanol, we won\u2019t get that animal feed.\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Yet more farmer beef<\/h2>\n

The feed supply issue is just one of several fears that Joe Seels, a Yorkshire-based beef farmer, has for his livelihood as the dust settles on the trade deal.<\/p>\n

The NFU\u2019s Bradshaw went to lengths to praise the government for maintaining standards in the face of US pressure. But for Seels, who documented his attendance at the string of protests in London around the changes to inheritance tax on his own Youtube channel, the deal represents yet another example of British agriculture being the fall industry to fix problems elsewhere in the economy.<\/p>\n

His primary concern is that there will now be a glut of beef supply in the UK, without the same opportunities to export to the US. Because while the deal ostensibly brings down barriers to trade both ways \u2013 both countries agreed to accept 13,000 metric tonnes of beef imports each other each year tariff free \u2013 Seels can\u2019t imagine a world in which American food producers buy British.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m really sceptical that it will open up new export avenues,\u201d<\/strong><\/em> he says.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing American is eating American beef, they won\u2019t accept ours which will be at a premium to [the hormone-aided beef] in their market.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

While the challenging trade environment in the US will persist, British farmers, he adds, will now face stiff competition from the low-cost American beef that will now be available at home.<\/p>\n

Consumers and supermarkets are likely to continue to prefer domestically produced beef. Despite other large beef producing nations having access to the UK market, shoppers overwhelmingly prefer meat produced domestically or in Ireland. Senior figures in retail believe that the ubiquity and salience of farm labelling \u2013 from the \u2018red tractor\u2019 signifier of food standards to the regular sight of union-jack adorned packaging \u2013 mean shoppers are unlikely to find American meat in supermarket aisles.<\/p>\n

Where Seels and Bradshaw imagine the influx of American beef will be felt, however, is catering and hospitality, where choice is constricted and labelling is less prominent.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey [the US] have got less red tape, fewer planning restrictions, and their farming operations are just on a huge scale, which all leads to being able to create a product that\u2019s much cheaper,\u201d says Seels.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cWe won\u2019t see that on shelves,\u201d<\/strong> he adds, \u201cbut where this beef might have a market is food services.\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Ministers have been at pains to trumpet the deal\u2019s positive impact on livestock farmers, many of whom have long feared the spectre of chlorinated chicken and hormone beef being a concession in wider UK-US trade talks. But years of feeling let down by successive governments, mean farmers remain fearful of what the future holds.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have no faith whatsoever that the government will protect our interests in future negotiations,\u201d <\/strong><\/em>says Harrison.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“They\u2019re just giving us another kick every time, and not realising how vulnerable the farming sector is.\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

That scepticism is shared by Seels, who like Harrison is also a\u00a0popular farming video blogger<\/a>\u00a0and has previous in using his channels to vent at political decision making.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis government has said things to us in the past that it wasn\u2019t going to do then it\u2019s turned around and changed its mind,\u201d<\/strong><\/em> he says.<\/p>\n

If it does so again, ministers can expect the vitriolic response comprising more than just a few fiercely worded Youtube videos.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span>
\nThu, 05\/15\/2025 – 06:30<\/span><\/p>\n

\u200bhttps:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/geopolitical\/uk-farmers-fear-bioethanol-market-following-us-trade-deal<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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