The Scottish Government has recently published a Summary Report from a study that The Andersons Centre undertook in 2022 to assess the impact on Scottish agriculture of Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) between the UK and four selected non-EU partners, namely: Australia; New Zealand (NZ); Canada; and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).
It quantifies the FTA impacts on selected Scottish agricultural sectors namely: cereals (wheat and barley); livestock (dairy, beef and sheep); and potatoes. This has been done using two FTA scenarios, Low Liberalisation (tariff-free trade with a 25% reduction in non-tariff measure (NTM) costs) and High Liberalisation (tariff-free trade with a 50% NTM costs’ reduction). These scenarios are compared to the Main Baseline whereby the UK has left the EU and the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) is in place, as are the rollover trade deals that the UK agreed during the Brexit process. Additionally, a top-level comparison was given between the Main Baseline and an Alternative Baseline (No-Brexit) scenario.
The research was undertaken in collaboration with Wageningen University and Research (WUR) and used a combination of MAGNET, a computable general equilibrium economic model to assess the individual and aggregated impacts of each FTA, as well as desk-based research and interviews with industry experts representing organisations in Scotland and the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the Gulf region.
Assessments were also undertaken on the impact of tariffs, non-tariff measures (NTMs) and tariff rate quotas (TRQs) on UK trade with each selected partner, as well as the EU. These modelling results were then used in conjunction with additional analyses on potatoes to ascertain the impact of the FTAs on UK and Scottish agri-food output and farm-level performance in Scotland.
A PDF version of the Summary Report is available via the Scottish Government website.
