When I wrote last week that the promises that the Mercosur countries would observe full EU environmental and quality assurance standards were simply untrue, I was not aware of the major investigation by the Irish Farmers Journal/IFA team that was about to be published.

The evidence is so compelling that it is hard to see how it can be ignored by regulators and legislators. We can only await political developments and see if and how the circles can be squared.

But the whole debacle raises a really basic question on the future place of EU food production.

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When in the past we were lectured about becoming more competitive in our production methods, we never dreamed that we would be prevented from using up-to-date technical developments available to our third country competitors or, that we would find husbandry aids made inaccessible to us, while still being used by those competing with us – but this is precisely what is happening.

It is astonishing that so few facts have been assembled on how the EU’s share of world markets in various sectors is likely to develop in the coming years.

EU policymakers have been lulled into a false sense of security by the buoyancy of food export earnings, but this says more about the sophistication of food manufacturing in the EU than farmers’ ability and competitiveness to produce the raw material.

What we lack is information on how much of the sophisticated food and drink exports from the EU are made from imported ingredients.

I note that in the latest US EU arguments over machinery imports, the United States of America is insisting on knowing where the steel that went into the products came from.

If it’s not EU steel, then the 15% deal doesn’t apply.

In reality, it’s hard to see the unwinding of the Mercosur deal, but we should at least press for food and drink sold within the EU and exported under an EU label to be made from EU ingredients.

Otherwise it should be denied an EU label. The same principle could apply to the issuing by Bord Bia of the Irish quality assurance label to Irish food products.

The changes in world production patterns and the penalties applying to EU farmers reducing our competitiveness make new thinking and policies essential if we are to have a future.