After the UK joined the EU in 1973, tariffs designed to protect its home market from cheaper imports were dropped and European producers were allowed free access to the British market. Until then, Jersey had exported a wide variety of vegetable, salad and flower crops to the UK each year.
As European producers received subsidies and enjoyed larger scales of production than those in Jersey, local growers were not able to compete, in spite of their long-established free trade links throughout the British food retail market, and exports declined.
JFU president Graham Le Lay said: ‘I hope the tariffs that protected British growers in the past will be re-introduced so we can capitalise on our trade links to re-kindle that lucrative market to the UK and hopefully this will bring back a greater diversity of crops.’
Read more farmers comments in this weekend’s JEP.
