Posted by dereklane on September 4, 2019, 8:07 pm, in reply to "Re: 'Cheaper food'"
Re lamb, no Because the farmer doesn't decide the prices, all they can do is find the best market to sell. At the moment, that's overseas, with guarantees. Compared to other types of hill farming the overheads are lower so probably still the easiest option (in some places still the only option). Re your first question, I don't know but maybe someone else does. Certainly I've heard no clear answers that make any sense. Among other things I've worked in shipping (manifests and hazardous cargo). As I said in an earlier post, manifest reach dest before ship; same is true for wagons. If the manifest exists, the driver has appropriate paperwork, often the wagon would go straight through. There are checks but lately it's been more for immigration (thanks to both tories and labour before) than for veracity of manifest.
It seems unlikely that a shipment via China would be subject to eu rules except where applicable to the uk (uk doesn't follow a lot of eu rules on produce already- potatoes and growth retardant a case example). If out the eu, would make sense to be quicker rather than slower, but neglibly, as for produce from the eu. Technically there should be customs checks anyway, and if the deal has already been made, a pre vs post eu shipment shouldn't take any longer. Despite the daily mail esque scare mongering I have not yet seen a good reason why this might be the case.