An economist with the Agriculture and Trade Commission (ATC), Catherine McBride, took the opposite tack in her criticism, arguing that the deal was too protective of British farmers, in the way it phased in the tariff reductions. The hard truth, she wrote in the Daily Express, was that the UK had long since passed the point where its farmers could grow enough food to feed the entire population, and needed imports of many farm products, particularly beef and lamb. Dairy farmers should not, McBride said, have to wait six years for tariff-free access to the Australian market so their cattle- and lamb-raising counterparts could be insulated from corresponding competition for fifteen. "Protecting a bad business model (UK grazing) to the detriment of a good business (UK dairy farming) is economic madness", she wrote. "But, that is how protectionism usually plays out."
