Trump’s UK ambassador hits out at US farming ‘smears’

The EU has a ‘Museum of Agriculture’ approach to farming that blocks innovation, said Woody Johnson.

The U.K. should ignore "smears" about U.S. farming methods and move away from the EU's "Museum of Agriculture" approach, said Woody Johnson, Washington’s ambassador to the U.K.

Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Johnson urges U.K. citizens to embrace a bilateral trade deal that includes a loosening of the EU’s agriculture standards.

During negotiations over the now-abandonned TTIP trade deal between the EU and U.S., the prospect of imports of genetically modified tomatoes and “chlorinated chicken” from the U.S. led to protests in the U.K. ButPresident Donald Trump’s administration is hoping for a second chance to open the U.K. market to these products after the country's EU divorce.

Johnson said that U.K. consumers had been presented with a false choice. "Either stick to EU directives, or find yourselves flooded with American food of the lowest quality. Inflammatory and misleading terms like 'chlorinated chicken' and 'hormone beef' are deployed to cast American farming in the worst possible light," he wrote.

"It is time the myths are called out for what they really are: a smear campaign from people with their own protectionist agenda."

Different approaches in the U.K. and EU are “not a question of quality but philosophy,” Johnson argued. The U.S. embraces innovation to bring “safe, affordable food” to the world, while the EU emphasizes tradition — a “Museum of Agriculture approach.”

Johnson rebutted some specific concerns: Chlorine washing chicken is a “public safety no-brainer” to eliminate germs, he wrote, pointing out the EU producers do the same to decontaminate fruit and vegetables. And he argued that using growth hormones meant beef could be produced at “lower cost to both the environment and the consumer.”

He urged Britons to join the U.S. to “shape the agricultural revolution of the future.”