Trade policy covers a wide area of activity, including technical and regulatory affairs, raw material supply chain, food safety, biotechnology and environmental matters.

Today an increasing amount of the legislation which directly or indirectly affects the flour milling industry, emanates from the European Union. nabim therefore closely monitors developments at the EU level in order to be able to provide EU and UK policy makers with sensible and realistic advice early on in the legislative process. This helps to ensure that any subsequent legal requirements are valid, achievable and enforceable. nabim also advises its members on new legislation likely to have an impact on the UK flour milling industry.

nabim also closely follows agricultural trade-related developments in the EU (most recently the reforms to the Common Agricultural Policy proposed by the European Commission) and the WTO (whose members are currently negotiating new global trading rules, including rules for agriculture).

In addition, nabim is also engaged in identifying ways and means to help members comply with legislation. A recent example is the development of an industry template for an environmental management system designed to facilitate fulfilment of new legislation on pollution prevention.

nabim has a limited research budget which it uses, in part, to fund projects designed to improve the trading environment, including through the development of better equipment or the generation of data to support specific policy approaches.

For a more detailed look at some of the areas covered by trade policy, click on the relevant links in this section.