Members of the IFA National Livestock Committee occupied the offices of the
European Commission in Dublin against the EU/Mercosur trade negotiations.

Leading the County Monaghan delegation at the overnight protest  Andrew
Boylan said the negotiations pose a multi-billion euro threat to the
European and Irish agriculture sector and the European Commission cannot
allow agriculture and food security to be sacrificed.   A recent COPA study
has put the cost of a deal for the European beef and livestock sector at up
to €25bn.

With the negotiations set to resume in Brussels in the next week the
European Commission cannot give in to the South Americans and must safeguard
the fundamental principle of community preference in the Common Agriculture
Policy. “Given the importance of agriculture and beef and livestock to the
Irish economy, farmers will be looking to the new Government to take up this
issue, which is of vital national interest, at the highest level in the EU
Commission. The negative impact from a Mercosur deal would seriously damage
our economic recovery and inflict major job losses at farm and industry
level across the country.”

He said, “The demand from South America for a huge increase in imports would
destroy the European steak market and severely damage beef prices in Ireland
and across European markets.  The EU cannot hand over half of our high value
steak market to the South Americans, who fail to meet EU food safety
standards.”

Monaghan IFA Livestock Chairman Andrew Boylan highlighted the fundamental
contradictions in the EU policy on trade, climate change and sustainability.
“On the one hand, Europe claims to be concerned about sustainability and a
leader on climate change.  On the other hand the EU is prepared to accept a
major increase in beef imports from Brazil and other South American
countries where a recent EU study found the carbon footprint is up to 4
times higher than Irish beef.”

Greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) from imported Brazilian beef are estimated at
80kgs CO2-eq/kg, compared to only 19kgs CO2-eq/kg from Irish suckler beef
production.  In addition, the IFA highlighted that Brazil is burning up to
2.15m hectares of rainforest on an annual basis, an area half the size of
Ireland’s agricultural area. Most of this deforestation is attributable to
an increase in cattle production.