Animal welfare standards have found their way into one of New Zealand’s trade agreements for the first time, but without repercussions for farmers or exporters if they are not maintained.
British farming unions pushed for the animal welfare chapter in the United Kingdom’s recently-concluded free trade agreement with NZ.
The chapter states that NZ and the UK should use their “best endeavours” to ensure that neither’s farming industries lower animal welfare standards to gain a trade advantage over the other.
Much of the debate in the UK surrounding its post-Brexit trade negotiations has centred on the potential for British farmers to be bankrupted if the tariffs protecting them from cheap imports from countries with lower animal welfare and environmental standards were removed.
Industry sources said NZ negotiators went along with the UK’s animal welfare demands knowing the pay-off was the eventual elimination of tariffs on key agricultural exports into the British market.
A spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) said there were no penalties available in the agreement should either side fail to use their best efforts to maintain animal welfare standards in their respective farming industries.
“This means that a party could not use the dispute settlement suspension of concessions provision to withdraw benefits in another area of the FTA if it was concerned about the implementation of any animal welfare obligations,” the spokesperson said.
“In addition … the chapter also makes it clear that both parties have the right to set their own policies and priorities in this area.”
Trade Minister Damien O’Connor said while there would be more cooperation between both countries on animal welfare issues in international standard-setting bodies, there would be no interference in NZ farming practices from British regulators as a result of the agreement.
“Animal welfare in [the British] market is a very topical and sensitive issue.
“We have to stay ahead of consumer focus and the acknowledgement of the high standards that we have in both countries was great but … we do run different systems of farming and food production and it was not appropriate that we make judgements on each other’s systems other than a commitment to the highest standards of animal welfare within the systems that we have,” O’Connor said.
Beef + Lamb NZ’s general manager for policy and advocacy Dave Harrison said the animal welfare chapter reflected increasing pressure on governments to find ways to incorporate ethical considerations into trade agreements.
“It is the way that the world is moving; you see those sorts of ethical concerns coming into CPTPP on not just environment and animal welfare standards, but labour standards too,” Harrison said.
But Britain’s RSPCA said the deal with NZ lacked teeth and set a bad precedent for future agreements.
The animal charity said the absence of penalties showed the UK would tolerate lower animal welfare standards among trading partners for the sake of a deal.
But Harrison said countries were still grappling with the finer detail of how such concerns should be handled in trade agreements and negotiators had taken a sensible approach.
“I have no doubt that the UK farmers would have been doing everything they could to protect themselves and be wanting something enforceable,” he said.
“So they are probably disappointed.
“A good thing about not signing up to legally binding disputes is that it gives you an opportunity to see how all of this stuff plays out before you can be challenged.”
Former Trade Minister Lockwood Smith said it was possible the animal welfare part of the UK deal will be beefed up in years to come.
That had been NZ’s experience in the recent upgrade of its 2008 trade agreement with China, he said.
“If you go back to the original China FTA it mentioned the environment in similar ways,” Lockwood said.
“There was a chapter on the environment and it talked about cooperation and that sort of thing to make things better, it really didn’t have any bite, but if you look at the China upgrade it has been taken a step further.
“Consumers are pushing for higher standards all the time in these sorts of areas now.
“Just look at what is happening here in NZ with eggs and environmental regulations.
“We are not going to see these things suddenly turn around.”
