The Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers’ Association (ICSA) has said that it will hold a “rally” at the gates of Leinster House to protest against the potential ratification of the EU-Mercosur Trade Agreement.
The farm organisation said that it aimed to highlight the “severe threat” the agreement poses to Irish agriculture and rural communities.
It is understood that the European Commission is planning to finalise the trade deal in mid-November during the G20 summit in Brazil, which is a Mercosur member country.
The highly controversial deal will allow an additional 99,000t of beef enter the EU from Mercosur tariff-free.
Sean McNamara, the president of the ICSA, has called on farmers, agri-businesses, and rural communities to “unite in defending the future of Irish agriculture and rural livelihoods”.
The rally at Leinster House is planned for next Tuesday (November 5) at 11:00a.m.
“Mercosur will devastate Irish agriculture by allowing cheap, untraceable beef from South America to flood the European market,” McNamara said.
“Rather than supporting high-quality Irish and European beef, this deal is a blatant attempt to turn our beef into a low-cost, lowest-common-denominator commodity, and will reduce us to competing at unsustainable world market prices, currently standing at €3.50/kg,” he claimed.
“We cannot allow our beef farmers to be sacrificed in this way.
“If this deal goes ahead, Irish farmers will be forced into an impossible situation, facing deliberately-stacked odds that make it unsustainable to compete,” McNamara added.
According to the ICSA president, Irish beef farmers will have to compete against producers in other countries who will undercut them on price in the event the trade deal is ratified.
He also said the issue was about rural Ireland as well a beef production.
“The viability of producing high-quality, sustainable beef in Ireland will be crushed, leading to a further decline in the national suckler herd and sheep flock, and the closure of countless small farms and rural businesses dependent on agriculture.
“This knock-on effect will be felt across every rural household and community,” McNamara said.
Reports suggest that the European Commission is planning to create a compensation fund to support sectors that would be economically damaged by the EU-Mercosur trade deal. According to McNamara, this would “solve nothing”.
“Past experience has shown that compensation packages are rarely worth the paper they are written on for primary producers. We don’t want compensation, we want fair market access,” he said.
Meanwhile, ICSA beef chairperson John Cleary warned that, if the deal is ratified next month, at the G20 summit, the Dáil could be dissolved by then in the run up to a general election.
“Time is running out, but we want to send a clear message that Irish farmers will not be sold out. The ICSA led the charge against Mercosur as far back as 2016, and we are here now to show our opposition will not waver, no matter which government takes office next. It is imperative that every candidate in the upcoming general election knows where Irish farmers stand on this,” Cleary added.