Australian farmers will be wiser as to how European agricultural policies might impact their operations following elections in the United Kingdom and European Union in coming weeks.
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The UK will be heading to the polls on July 4 after Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced a snap election last week.
That ballot will follow European Union elections between June 6 and 9 where up to 373 million eligible voters will decide the 720 lawmakers that will take a seat in Brussels.
Two big questions are likely to be answered that may cause some ripples through Australian agriculture.
The first is the potential impact of these plebiscites on trade and market access with the one-year anniversary of the UK free trade deal falling on May 31 and following a potential FTA with the EU shelved by Australian officials late last year due to a lack of value for agriculture commodities.
While stakeholders in Australia have noted that while nothing will be settled until the voting is counted and preference deals finalised, a powerful scent of protectionism is wafting through the electoral campaigns as politicians pander to producer's pressing for pro-farming policies.
The other major issue being eyed from afar are rolling out of EU agriculture policies around the sustainable use of pesticides and fertilisers, imports and emissions reduction, including the EU Nature Restoration Law and deforestation.
Meanwhile, the Albanese government have yet to speak officially on the topic of agriculture or trade with a UK Labour party, as diplomacy protocols demand, poised to assume power with bookmakers listing them as short as $1.05 to win government after 14 years in opposition.
Labour have indicated a willingness to work more closely with the EU than have the Conservatives on potential regulatory landscape changes, including those impacting agriculture, and a preference to prioritise products produced in Europe.
This could be formalised through a veterinary deal with the EU to reduce red tape for the trade of plant and animal origin goods, while the Keir Starmer-led Labour has also flagged a so-called "new deal for farmers" that includes a target where at least half of the food used in prisons, schools and hospitals will be produced in Britain.
It is unknown then how this may balance with Labour's green agenda, overall biodiversity protection program and push for improved animal welfare standards, as well as import trade agreements already in place with nations such as Australia and the Ukraine.
At the same time particularly right and centre-right candidates in the EU have made agriculture a focal point in seeking the reflected credentials from farmers fresh from a wave of protests through Europe in the early part of this year that centred around the challenge of remaining competitive against a government green shift.
Farmers will not decide the UK election, while candidates in the EU and Irish elections for starters will be more aggressively chasing the rural voter, but the outgoing president of the National Farmers Union Minette Batters last month left a mess for campaign designers in labelling some Conservative decisions as "morally bankrupt". These range from a ban on live animal exports to a series of unpopular post-Brexit trade deals.
While new NFU president Tom Bradshaw last week declared the looming UK elections as possibly "the most important in a generation for British food and farming".
"The stakes are very high. If the next government gets it right, then this huge sector can grow, contributing even more to the UK economy, to the health and welfare of Britons and to the environment," he said.
"But farming and growing is under huge pressure."
Domestically, UK farmers are wanting intervention ona phase out of the rural grants Basic Payment Scheme payments, rising input costs, flooding and food security and "trade agreements and supply chain fairness".
Mr Sunak announced a serious of food and farming measures at a NFU summit last month that echoed some items listed by the lobby group in its pre-election manifesto, including the publishing of a Food Security Index and increased support for the tenant sector.
It also announced a five-year extension to the Seasonal Worker Scheme earlier this month following the Shropshire Independent Review into Labour Shortages.
However, the Conservatives are so no the nose in the UK that pollsters predict that may lose half of the 96 out of 100 available rural seats to Labour and Liberal Deomcrats candidates, particularly after three recent regional byelection seat losses.
The Country Land and Business Association reported recently that Labour's primary vote in rural areas had climbed 17 points to 37pc and the Conservatives dropping 25pts to 34pc based on 2019 election numbers.
Sunak, 44, heads into the election not only far behind Labour in the polls but also rather isolated from some in his party and, according to Associated Press, increasingly dependent on a small team of advisers to steer him through what is set to be an ugly campaign.
Despite the uncertainty over what may follow the UK and EU elections, Australia's shadow trade spokesperson Kevin Hogan believes the "strong and special relationship with deep rooted business and people-to-people connections" between Australia and the UK will see the A-UKFTA hold strong.
The A-UKFTA was commenced by the Coalition in government and completed by the current Labor government. Australia's share of trade covered by FTA's has lifted from about 27 per cent in 2013 to now over 80pc.
