It’s official. The UK-Australia Free Trade Agreement has been signed and it’s terrible news for farmed animals.
As we highlighted when this deal first came to light this summer, it will ultimately remove all tariffs on imports of many Australian meat and dairy products. Despite the fact that animal welfare standards are much lower in Australia than they are in the UK.
Around 40% of the beef produced in Australia comes from cows fattened in feedlots, where animals spend months in intensive conditions, fed largely on grain rather than grazing on pasture.
This new deal also doesn’t prevent imports that fail to meet British standards. So, UK shops could be stocked with beef from feedlots, as well as meat from sheep subject to the cruel mutilation by ‘mulesing’, and products from animals treated with much higher doses of antibiotics than are normally used in Britain. This could completely undermine hard-fought for UK animal welfare standards.
Please stand up for farmed animals today. Email Anne-Marie Trevelyan, Secretary of State for International Trade, and tell her that trade deals that accept low standards are unacceptable.
The UK Government has repeatedly said they wouldn’t let post-Brexit trade deals compromise British animal welfare standards. However, this deal proves otherwise.
Crucially, it also sets a dangerous precedent for other trade deals with countries like the US, with its huge agri-corporations and often shockingly low animal welfare standards.
Will you help protect farmed animals? Take action today to call on the Government to safeguard animal welfare standards in future free trade deals.