New requirements will allow Scottish seed potatoes back across the water into the Northern Irish market from autumn this year, according to a Defra minister.
More than 75% of Britain’s seed potato exports comes from Scotland, with the country exporting seed to 18 EU countries.
However, since January 2021, Scottish farmers have been unable to export seed potatoes to NI and the EU because of changes in trade regulations.
Following the Windsor Framework, minister of state at Defra, Lord Benyon said that previously banned seed potatoes will now be able to move from Great Britain to Northern Ireland as they do in the rest of the UK.
Those moving seed potatoes will be inspected and approved by an authority annually which will allow traders to print and apply the plant label themselves.
Gordon MP Richard Thomson, who is leading efforts to restore access for Scottish seed potatoes, said the new development was ‘welcome progress’.
He did add that exporters would still be looking to resume exporting to their former EU and rest of Ireland markets, on which “progress has been limited”.
“While it is undoubtedly good news for exporters that they will once again be able to get their product into NI, no-one should be in any doubt that this is just a first step along the road to where Scotland needs to be, and that is to have our export markets in the EU fully restored,” he said.
“The disruption of not even being able to get seed potatoes into another part of the UK is something that should not be forgotten nor that neither Scotland nor Northern Ireland voted for this chaos in the first place.”
