The twists and turns of the Brexit are nearing an end, and negotiations must be completed by March 29th. (Change that… it’s just been extended to April 12th!) Without an agreement, the UK will leave the European Union with legal and trade matters still “undefined”.

In business and government, “undefined” is a very bad thing. Financial firms are fleeing from the UK and moving to Germany, Poland, and elsewhere. The disintegration of the world’s second largest financial market is troubling, yet it pales compared to an even more pressing issue… how will the Brit’s buy their next chicken?

OK, maybe that just the most pressing issue for chicken farmers. But think about it. Like the rest of Europe, the UK is pretty finicky about how their food is raised and treated. They are more willing to pay for natural food than we are in the US. In fact, the UK and Europe have been fighting against the American way of raising food, which often involves more chemicals and more processing.

Paul Lewis, a professor of English, coined the term “Frankenfood”. European consumers seized on this term as a rejection of genetically modified foods and typically “American” processed foods. 19 out of the 28 member states of the European Union have voted to either partially or fully ban Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs). For the past few decades, the food standards of the EU (and the UK) have been diverging from that of America. That has made the EU market increasingly difficult for American farmers to sell to. More on that in just a bit!

Before the EU, member nations were largely food independent. Food was grown and consumed locally, though certain foods (French cheese, Italian wine, German beer) were seen as exceptionally good and worth importing. Throughout the last century all sorts of import and export details… moisture levels in honey, the protein content of “whole” milk, methods of weighing and counting products, etc… were agreed to. They had to be! If not, how would trade grow?

While there were agreements on agriculture and trade, they were bi-lateral agreements. Something as simple as defining “what is butter”, required the UK to complete 20-30 individual negotiations. One for each nation that the UK buys from or sells to. That’s a lot of negotiating! Simplifying all of these negotiations and just having one agreement on what butter is and how it can be sold between nations was one of the two big benefits of the EU agreement.

The other benefit was that as individual nations, Europe was having a hard time competing with America. Bigger farms in America could produce more butter, cheaper than in the UK. As products were becoming increasingly more complex (think about next-gen microchips, self-driving cars, commercial rockets), individual European nations… even the UK, Germany, and France… would no longer be able to compete against America.

Ironically, the creation of the EU was one of the reasons that America created the NAFTA treaty with Mexico and Canida. This would drive down costs, and make American manufacturing more efficient. Now the UK is trying to break the EU with the Brexit, while the US has already dropped NAFTA. The international agreements that both nations said would increase trade, which they succeeded in doing, are both about to vanish… just as China is about to become the number one economy in the world. In fact, China is expected to be bigger than the US and the EU COMBINED, in just a few years. Yep. Very clever work in the English speaking world.

Back in the UK, they are now agonizing over exactly what the no-Brexit crowd warned. First, unwinding decades of agreements is very difficult. Second, why would every one of the remaining 27 members of the EU all give into the UK and give them better agreements than they had before they left the EU? Third and finally, if instead the UK and EU merely agree that they will keep to the same agreements they had before the Brexit. Why go through the pain and uncertainty of the Brexit?

It’s that last question that “no-Brexit” voters want answered! Still, if you look at it from another point of view, the Brexit may still be a good thing. And which view is this? Why it’s the view of the America farm industry! America is big enough to supply all of the UK’s agricultural needs. Nobody breeds more chickens, more cheaply, than the United States of America! Proble solved, right?

You think so? Clearly, you are not a student of international politics! Remember that divergence in agriculture we spoke about earlier? For decades, America has been pushing for higher automation, more technology, greater productivity and lower cost foods. The EU (and the UK) have been pushing towards, more natural, fewer chemicals, native breeds, preservation of traditional agriculture, and no GMO. American chickens are different breeds than those in the UK. They are bigger and grow faster than those in the UK (due to selective breeding , hormones and chemicals that are banned in the UK). And, as was recently pointed out in the UK’s Parliment, Amerincan chickens are CHLORINATED!

What exactly is a chlorinated chicken? Simply, it means that the chickens are washed in a fairly diluted solution of chlorine (think bleach) and water. Eeeewwww! Or maybe not? Doesn’t the UK use chlorine in their drinking water? Yes, they do. However, in America, our water has up to 10 times the chlorine levels that they do in the UK. In America, we can wash a chicken in some municipal drinking water and it could qualify as “chlorinated”.

However, in just about any location in the UK, they would need to add chlorine. More chemicals! And that’s why Chlorinated American Chickens is an issue in the UK. Of course, we could solve the problem by just not using chlorinated water. Simple, right?

Ahhhh… not quite. You see, because of America’s more industrial agriculture practices, we have more bacterial contamination, especially salmonella. America has 5 to 10 times the number of reported food poisoning than is typical for the UK. American chickens NEED to be chlorinated.

Even with chlorination, American chicken may have more bacterial contamination than the UK will accept. If there is a deal for chicken, stronger chlorination or additional chemicals may be used. Ultimately, the US will need to lobby the UK for the use of more chemicals. That’s certainly not what the pro-Brexit forces promised when they pushed for a break with the EU.

Chlorinated chickens are just the thin edge of the wedge. As the UK / EU relationship weakens, the US will place enormous pressure on the UK to buy a wider range of US products. WIth the UK by itself, separated from the market strength of th EU, will they be able to stand up to Donald Trump’s all or nothing negotiating style? Maybe we should just jump straight to having Monsanto develop a GMO chicken that cleans itself! The benefits of Brexit are just beginning!

What do you think about the Brexit and the future of the EU?