The Stronger In Europe campaign group claims farmers and food producers could face £1.5 billion annually in border taxes if the UK left the single market and was left without an FTA The group campaigning to stay in Europe, says 61% of the UK’s food and drinks exports, worth £11 bn, go to the EU – at the moment, these exports face no additional costs or tariffs, and can therefore freely enter a market of 500 million consumers.

It says outside the single market and without an FTA – a scenario leading Leave campaigners have advocated – UK farmers and food producers would face a range of tariffs on their products, meaning the cost of trade would sky-rocket.

With more than 90% of UK beef and lamb exports go to the EU, the group says if we left the single market, some beef products would be subject to a 70% surcharge and some lamb products a 40% surcharge, devastating the farming sector.

Ity says other tariffs include: • A 36% average tariff for dairy products.

• A 16% average tariff for cereal • A 13% average tariff for fruit and vegetables The UK agriculture sector directly support over 400,000 jobs in the UK. The broader agri-food sector supports 3.6 million jobs.

EU member states account for 7 out of the UK’s top 8 agricultural export markets.

No non-EU member state enjoy tariff-free access to the single market for agricultural products.

Peter Kendall, former President of the NFU, said: “These figures show how critical full access to the world’s largest single market is to our farming industry. If we left the EU, farming, which is the UK’s biggest manufacturing sector would face significant additional costs – bad news for farmers and bad news for the UK as a whole. That is another reason why we must safeguard our industry by keeping Britain in the EU.”