Create a free Feed Strategy account to continue reading

Northern Ireland’s feed industry may benefit from Brexit

Brexit poses a mixed bag of opportunities and challenges for Northern Ireland's animal feed manufacturers

Brexit-Northern-Ireland-animal-feed
omersukrugoksu | iStock.com

Britain’s exit from the European Union presents a wealth of opportunities and challenges for Northern Ireland’s livestock feed industry.

Brexit brings a chance for feed companies to import grains from countries outside the EU while maintaining tariff-free trading agreements with the U.K. However, for the feed companies based in the north, Brexit may make exporting feed to the neighboring Republic of Ireland costly depending on future trading arrangements.

Thirty percent of Northern Ireland’s production in all sectors is exported outside the U.K., and with EU tariffs on milk and beef products — which operate in the 50 percent range on exports to Europe, including the Republic of Ireland — exports become impossible without a trade agreement.