The EU-Mercosur trade discussions are on hold until the new year but the serious threat from a bad deal on beef and poultry has not gone away, IFA president Joe Healy has warned.

Now is a crucial time and Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and European Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development Phil Hogan must intensify the pressure against a Mercosur deal that will seriously damage the EU and Irish beef sector, the IFA president said.

Taoiseach Varadkar must make it crystal clear to his European colleagues that Ireland will not agree to a damaging Mercosur deal for the beef sector. “Beef is more important to Ireland than any other member state. The Taoiseach and Commissioner Hogan cannot agree to a Mercosur deal involving a major increase in substandard beef imports from Brazil at the same time as we face into the serious challenges of Brexit.”

Earlier this month, Joe Healy and national livestock chair Angus Woods were in Buenos Aires working to protect agriculture in the Mercosur trade talks, which took place in parallel with the 11th WTO ministerial meeting. Among those they have met with are Commissioner Phil Hogan, Sandra Gallina, chief EU negotiator on Mercosur, Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström, and Commissioner Jyrki Katainen, EU vice-president.

The IFA has also met fellow EU farm organisations to gain firm opposition to the deal. In these meetings, we have pointed to an EU Joint Research Centre report from last year which showed how vulnerable the European beef sector is to trade deals, particularly the suckler sectors in France, Spain and Ireland.

The analysis showed that increased imports from Mercosur would hit EU beef prices by up to 16%, costing €5bn annually. Due to our export dependence, the effect on Ireland would be greater, costing between €500m and €750m. In addition, Brexit has placed a major doubt over the UK market for 260,000t of Irish beef. With Brexit, the EU beef market would be 116% self-sufficient. “To negotiate a trade deal with Mercosur at this time would be reckless and makes no sense whatsoever,” Healy said.