On 5th September Borderlands participated in a national summit, hosted by the NFU, looking at the implications for farming families in a post-Brexit world. NFU national advisers provided input on a range of topics covering trade, labour, policy and regulation. There was, of course, no certainty about the outcome of Brexit, but what was clear was that the implications for farming, at least in the short term, would be considerably more damaging if there was no deal. Perhaps the slide that really brought it home for this part of the world was the tariffs that would be imposed in the event of a no-deal Brexit. The tariff for lamb is 48%: given that we export ten times more to the EU than we import, much of it from the Welsh hills, it is bound to have a significant impact on farming's profitability locally.
The networking achieved at the day was helpful and all of the delegates asked for the event to be repeated in the future so that we can all improve the care that we can provide to farming families in the tumultuous times ahead.