Brexit lays an egg

摘自2020-12-19 p12

Your leader on British farming and food standards after Brexit underplayed the role of international agritrade policy (“Ploughing its own furrow”, November 28th).
英国退欧后，您在英国农业和食品标准方面的领导人没有充分发挥国际农产品贸易政策的作用（????）。

Take your example of free-range eggs.
给你举个例子：散养鸡蛋

British consumers can buy them in conﬁdence now because of high eu and British standards.
因为欧盟和英国的高标准，现在英国的消费者可以放心的购买散养鸡蛋。

A tariﬀ on eggs and egg products protects the market from imports that are marked as free range but are of a lower standard.
鸡蛋和蛋制品关税，保护了本地鸡蛋和蛋制品免受标榜散养但是低标准的进口市场

In America, for example, an egg can be marketed as free-range as long as the hen house has one pophole;
在美国，只要饲养母鸡的鸡舍有一个大洞，那么他们就可以说自己是散养鸡蛋。

there is no deﬁnition as to what counts for a “range” or outside area for the hens, drastically reducing the cost。
他们没有准确的定义散养的概念或者鸡舍外面的活动区域，因此急剧的削减了成本。

A British hen house will have, say, 20 popholes depending on the size of a ﬂock.
根据母鸡的大小，英国的鸡将有20个小孔。

Without a tariﬀ, lower-priced American imports would bankrupt British free-range egg farmers.
没有关税的话，美国低价格的进口鸡蛋会导致英国本土的散养鸡蛋的农场主们破产。

Your supposition that British consumers would prefer to buy the more expensive British free-range eggs over cheap imported ones has already been disproved in the example of pig meat.
你可能觉得英国的消费者比起便宜的进口鸡蛋可能更愿意买价钱贵的英国散养鸡蛋，这一点早就在猪肉上得到了证实。

In the 1990s Britain banned sow stalls ahead of the rest of the eu,
在1990年，英国早于其它欧盟地区颁发放养母猪的禁令。

adding considerable cost to the production of domestic pig meat products.
这增加了国产猪肉产品的生产成本。

The government thought consumers would favour more expensive, higher welfare British pork, but instead they turned to cheaper pork from Denmark and the Netherlands.
政府觉得消费者偏向于更贵且有更多优惠的英国猪肉，但是事实恰恰相反，消费者转头去购买从丹麦和荷兰进口的便宜猪肉。

Half the British pig industry was exported overnight, a loss to the economy, and pig welfare.
过半的英国本土猪肉产业一夜间破产，给经济带来了损失。and pig welfare.

robert gooch
Chief executive British Free Range Egg Producers Association Saxmundham, Suﬀolk