The sacrificial lambs of Brexit: sheep farmers, food security and climate change

John Lever, Awal Fuseini and Peter Gittins

Chapter 9 in Commodity Chains under Pressure, 2025, pp 186-207 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: In the aftermath of the vote to leave the European Union (EU), the United Kingdom (UK) Government set out to develop domestic policies to replace the EU's Common Agricultural Policy. After Brexit, England was the first country to develop a new policy framework revolving around a series of environmental land management schemes (ELMS) that arguably reward powerful landowners over and above small farmers by prioritising environmental outcomes over food security. Focussing on the lived experiences and present realities facing sheep farmers in England since the introduction of the new framework, we explore the contested processes involved and the future direction of UK agricultural policy in a period characterised by a series of external shocks to the agrifood system. Drawing on insights from a series of studies of regional food systems in the North of England, we consider these developments alongside the growing and somewhat paradoxical importance of the halal meat market to the English sheep sector in a global political economy underpinned by wider concerns about climate change.

Keywords: Brexit; Climate change; Covid-19; Halal meat; Sheep farming; Trade agreements (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
ISBN: 9781035355297
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