In a letter to the taoiseach, tánaiste and Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, the Environmental Pillar says that the EU-Mercosur deal will drive habitat loss, exacerbate the climate and biodiversity crisis, while driving unfair competition, accelerating the collapse of many family farms across Ireland.
Steering committee member and head of advocacy at An Taisce, Dr Elaine McGoff said: “Agricultural intensification and deforestation, compounded by climate change, is resulting in the loss and degradation of ecosystems such as the Cerrado and the Amazon rainforest. The EU-Mercosur trade deal is designed to ramp up trade in products that are driving the destruction of these ecosystems that are critical to global biodiversity and the regulation of the global climate.”
The agreement, which will allow the importation of 99,000 tonnes of beef from Mercosur countries at lower duty rate of 7.5 per cent over five years. This will further undermine the profitability of small family farms across Ireland, the Environmental Pillar says.
Brian Meredith from farm organisation and Environmental Pillar member Talamh Beo said: “We fear that these farms will be unable to compete with the commodities of scale, the lower standards and the lower cost of production of imported South American beef. The socio-economic consequences of this could be catastrophic given that the majority of Irish farmers are engaged in some form of cattle enterprise and the sector is already in a financially vulnerable position due to poor profitability. Many extensive Irish suckler farmers help to support high nature value farming systems and their loss would also have a negative impact on Ireland's biodiversity.” The Environmental Pillar also criticised the lack of transparency around the deal.