THE IRISH Farmers’ Association (IFA) has called on Taoiseach Brian Cowen to intervene with EU Commission president José Manuel Barroso to stop him doing a deal with Brazil and other Latin American countries to allow increased imports of beef into the union.
About 200 farmers who protested outside the European Commission’s offices yesterday were told by IFA president John Bryan that such a deal would be disastrous for the beef industry in Ireland and Europe.
He said an EU trade deal with Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay would decimate the livelihoods of the 100,000 Irish beef and grain farmers.
“We are laying down a marker here to our Government and the EU. We will not tolerate any deal which undermines the safety of Europe’s beef and the future of beef farming,” he told cheering supporters.
Mr Bryan, who exposed the lack of controls in beef production in Brazil which led to its virtual banning here, accused Mr Barroso of trying to agree a World Trade Organisation deal by the back door.
He accused the commission of double standards on climate change by attempting to engineer a deal to increase Brazilian beef imports produced with rainforest destruction.
“We cannot be forced to compete with people who do not produce food to the same safe standards we do. We cannot allow President Barroso destroy not only the Irish beef industry but the industry in the whole of Europe,” he said.
Minister for Agriculture, Brendan Smith said he was calling for a full discussion of the proposed trade deal, about which he had very serious concerns, at next week’s meeting of agriculture ministers in Brussels.