Brazil has serious flaws in its traceability - antibiotics and growth hormones (illegal in the EU) can be bought over the counter without ID.
Their beef makes a mockery of the standards that EU farmers are legally obliged to meet.
Letting more Brazilian beef into Europe increases risks of contamination of our food chain, poor traceability makes it difficult to track if something does go wrong.
It makes zero sense for us to be importing beef from another continent. How are we supposed to tackle climate change when we're shipping products that already exist in the destination country just to line some peoples pockets?
The main / only reason it’s being done is because the German car industry has failed / refused to innovate and the German government believes that finding a new market is a substitute for innovation, despite their competition moving into those same markets at the same time.
Italy is also a major producer of industrial machinery.
Germany chased Chinese money, they are actively ruining their cars to make them appeal to Chinese buyers and Chinese buyers are having none of it because they can get cars they want for a fraction of the price in China. It will be the same in every country, if Germany tries to make Chinese cars they will fail utterly.
they are actively ruining their cars to make them appeal to Chinese buyers
How so?
Chinese cars seem better than german ones now, and cheaper to boot. That's a big reason they increased the import tax so much to make Chinese cars uncompetitive in Europe.
When VW was hiding their fudging of emissions rates, BYD was investing into R&D for EV and is now the industry leader.
The Germans have crashed out and now think that the Brazilian market is their answer when 1 their cars are too expensive for that market, 2 their EVs are worse than BYD, and 3 BYD are entering that market at a cheaper price.
The German government is at all times trying to coddle its extremely innovation adverse car industry.
They’ve been dominated by BYD and they’re refusing to do the one thing that will save them, innovate.
China innovated? You mean stole and reverse engineered German technology. It's the German's own naivety and shortsightedness to blame too but let's not heap too much praise on the Chinese for innovation.
No one forced German companies to set up manufacturing in China and that’s how Chinese companies steal technology. As you said. Naivety.
Either way, through good or bad, BYD has out innovated the German manufacturers, maybe they should have considered keeping their manufacturing in the EU.
I know I was like that's a hot take, the Chinese folks I know who have German cars (one did a pink merc with diamond style grill) only want the badge because it was "expensive" and are secretly not happy with the cars because their relatives cars are leaps and bounds better for half the price.
Chinese cars are not better than German. Chinese cars have lots of tech, but build quality still isn't there. they have cars for city commutes, they don't need sporty, they want comfort and entertainment. How the car performs matter less because it will be doing low speeds in cities.
European cars grew up on European roads last century. The roads set the bar for what made the car good. Now European manufacturers are trying to play the Chinese at their own game and they just can't. They will never beat the Chinese at making cars that Chinese people like.
I think we should have an internal agreement with European farmers. Europe doesn't need to import food it's already producing. The only reason to import food is for profit, and its often profit at the expense of labour exploitation.
And our environment suffers as well. Effluent runoff polluting our water systems while we export close to 90% of beef produced. Profit over environment.
Ireland has the highest standards of agriculture in the world. We have the strictest legislation regarding pollution, waste, animal welfare, you name it. If you want to ethical, environmentally conscious food, Ireland is number one. We even have stricter rules that the EU put on us! You should see how they do things in Spain or Greece! Never mind in Brazil 🤣 north and South America are famous for putting profits ahead of the environment or the planet! We’re literally the opposite! Irish food is produced under the most optimum conditions in terms of our grass rich land and wet weather, that paired with the highest agri standards in the world? We have such an abundance of natural and healthy food that’s not cost prohibitive. Try ordering organic grass fed beef in America or some where! Be multiple times the price of here
So there! Something else for you to be proud of because you’re Irish!
Our pollution has been increasing yearly re EPA reports. So maybe we need to do better and increase our already 'high standards'. We used to be 90% forest now we're 85% fields. Yearly hedgerow control (destruction), half unnecessary, looks like a dystopian war scape sometimes.
We could reduce meat production(animal slaughter) by 50% and we would still have enough to feed the country 5 times over. Export less for a better environment and more biodiversity.
Our inbreds still hunt foxes on horses with dogs(lobbiest controlled), and we subsidise dog and horse racing for essentially the gambling industry. So the 'animal welfare' legislation is not very good either.
A more balanced Landscape would be nice, that's all.
Our agriculture is held to the highest standards in the world I said.
By the way we’re planting trees more than ever before, actual trees to make woodlands, not the shite that collite grow for harvest. And it’s all being done by private citizens, farmers and landowners in Ireland. With the last 15 years Ireland has gone from strength to strength in terms of promoting and implementing biodiversity and natural habitats. I’d know as I have several of them
So yea it’s you need the education. Do you thing the farmers in Brazil are planting trees and improving biodiversity?
Cmon man stop being so anti farmer here. We’re held to the highest standards in the world and I’m proud of that. You can be too unless you just decide you don’t want to be.
Where would you like our food to come from? Shipped from I should say? What country produces food like us better? And as ethical?
Doesn’t sound like you’ve worked on many livestock farms around the world, cos if you did, you’d have some horror stories!
The loss of forests is a historic issue, not something farmers today are responsible for.
Almost no Irish farmers don’t hunt foxes on horseback with hounds. That’s just a nonsense. There’s more lawyers doing it than farmers.
We need to be more harsh on polluters because it is bringing the industry into disrepute. We also need to overhaul our forestry sector which is incredibly polluting.
Yea the forstry industry is owned by an international logging company for all intents and purposes! We don’t know who the shareholders of Coillte are, yet they make sure that wood fired power plants in the UK or global lumber companies have a constant supply
It’s nuts that we think Coillte is “the government body that maintains our woodlands” I mean I know they do call themselves that, but they’re a logging company. They ship out cheap trees, and we import lengths of 4x2 the price of a night out 🤣
I have cousins in Leitrim who have received a flyer in the letterbox telling them to keep their kids and pets indoors on particular days because they were spraying the trees for weevils or something. Imagine that landing on the doormat in Foxrock?
On the same grounds it makes zero sense for Ireland to be exporting butter and cheese to another continent. If you want to take a stand on an issue of principle start at home.
People import Irish butter because of the quality, grass fed, and branding. They probably could produce similar butter locally. There are lots of products like that.
It's all about the cash sheet in the modern world though. It could produce tonnes of pollution and kill a person per tonne produced and none of that would matter if the cash sheet looks good.
I think climate change and pollution are unsolvable in our current capitalist society, and we have no intention of changing.
You’re right, ireland is one of the most trade dependent countries in the world, it’s made us “rich”, and we have no intention of changing, and no sign of us taking any of the difficult steps required to meet the climate targets we agreed to, except blame other countries and pull up the ladder behind us.
The issue is the EU has implemented a number of rules to ensure a minimum quality of domestically produced foods, and stable prices (production quotas). This pushes costs and therefore prices of domestic produce up.
Now they are reducing import tariffs for the same products produced overseas which do not have to meet the same quality standards or the same production quotas.
So they are artificially pushing costs of domestic products up while allowing undercutting by overseas suppliers.
As for the argeument of consumer “freedom to choose”, if that was the goal why would the EU ever implement minimum quality standards? Why not just let the market self regulate? Because it doesn’t work and swiftly becomes a race to the bottom.
That race to the bottom is what the EU has tried to avoid until now with regulation and quotas. So it is anything bug a free market. This is what makes the free market argument so disingenuous - the imports are allowed a free market, but the domestic produce is not.
Your Irish butter argument actually doesn’t fit to the main argument in favour of the deal. It is never the cheapest butter option in the supermarket, but is the higher quality/price option. That is not what the Mercosur deal will bring in, it will instead bring in cheaper, lower quality produce, cheaper and lower quality than is legal to produce in the EU.
Ours is the best. People want it because they cannot produce it in their own countries, food is not like a commodity made of steel, its quality is highly dependent on what country it came from. You could set up an automated car factory in any country, and once you follow the protocol, the exact same stuff will roll out the door no matter where it it. Food is highly dependent on climate, land and farming practices
We can do both. Perfect is the enemy of good. I don't eat meat but voting against Mercosur is a good step and not importing meat we produce more than enough of is also a good step.
Ireland has always been a producer of beef. The fact we can't produce other things that well should count in our favour. It's not the same as a corporation building a farm in a region that can't grow grass and importing food and water to feed penned cattle.
If we organise with the rest of Europe we should be Europe's meet producer and we buy crops from Europe.
Exactly. That deal was a deal for German cars etc to flood the South American market. Beef was just all that was spoken about. And Germany will sacrifice anything, including the environment, to flog their overpriced, luxury , disposable cars into countries that don’t need them! Look what Volkswagen did a few years back when they wanted to flood the North American market?! 🤣 pure lunatics
We are already facing huge carbon emissions fines because we refuse to stop exporting vast amounts of beef. Do you propose we stop beef exports to China? Let's stop pretending people against this deal care about the environment. They decimated the greens in the last election because climate action annoys them.
Agriculture in general is a tricky one because less irish beef doesn't offset the demand. It opens up the market for beef production somewhere else and the likes of Brazil do it far worse than us. With irish beef you can't just look at it in an Irish context because people talk of irish beef as we produce so much and it just gets wasted away. You have to look at it from a European context and irish beef among others fills gaps in other countries who don't produce as much beef as us and instead have been able to focus that bit more on other forms of agriculture.
Food production is better viewed from the EU level.
If they have a system for making silage and it runs out for whatever reason, some years are bad, then it's a necessity to import feed.
I have no issue importing things we need, or things we can't produce here. But importing something that's also being produced down the road from me makes no sense.
Modern shipping operates at such a scale that the amount of carbon emissions for each kilo of cargo are pretty small.
I saw someone run the numbers on it a few years back for some fruit that had travelled most of the way around the world by distance (grown, packed, and sold each an ocean apart) and driving to and from the shop to buy it released significantly more co2 per unit.
That's an accounting trick though. It completely side steps the fact they produce millions of tonnes of carbon and pollution every year, anything looks small when you cut it up into microscopic pieces and just look at one of those microscopic pieces. The pollution and damage to environments doesn't go away because it's efficient.
We are moving stuff around the planet that doesn't need to be moved. We are transporting things back and over the planet because of the economics, we completely disregard every other factor.
I think it’s time you realise these corporations and governments don’t care about climate change or health of the citizens they have a new god they worship n it’s money above all else
Not just that, but products for which production is restricted by quotas here. Quotes implemented by the EU to stabilise prices, which they now undercut with imported beef
Yes that is one of the main issues I have with it. I would worry that the lower farming standards in Brazil etc would be used as an argument to lower domestic production standards.
The EU is currently discussing the future Common Agricultural Policy for 2028-2034 where making EU farming more competitive is a big part of it. If the Mercosur deal comes in I'd imagine there will be a big push to lower standards based on competitiveness arguments to match their standards.
I don't think we need to be making farming more competitive. Our focus should be on environment and animal welfare. "More competitive" means lower prices, which means farmers working more for less, and animal welfare will suffer.
And who are we competing with? we shouldn't be trying to compete at the bottom end of the market with countries that have lower standards. We force our own farmers to raise standards and cut costs, but then buy from a foreign farmer, with much lower standards and an exploited work force. All these things only benefit money people who are skimming the wealth from the ordinary workers.
If this country cared about animal welfare we wouldn't still have greyhound racing and fox hunting, and animal abuse laws would be updated so abusers would see harsher consequences.
You do know competitive doesn't mean "make cheaper" 😂.
Having better animal warfare, or "non-steriod filled beef" would be quite competitive on the quality scale.
Having more products or range makes you more competitive
People litterally pop up niche markets around premium products which adds to competition...
When someone buys that premium product, that's one less person buying cheap steroid filled beef. If you don't have competition and all you can buy is steroid filled beef, then that's all you're going to get.
So no, being more competitive can mean many things. The reality is however, people will typically buy the cheapest largely because good doesn't get labeled as "steroid filled beef that may be harmful to you"
Maybe if food was labelled like cigarettes, it would be very competitive for Europe when shit gets imported
"steroid filled beef"
"abused and bruised chicken beasts"
Which is never going to happen, because that would mean higher costs for Brazil. Brazil will fake their standards to sell to Europe and Europe will accept it because Germany wants to sell to Brazil
Considering there is no antibiotic or steroid tracing in Brazil, and that Ireland has already found contaminated beef in the existing limited supply from Brazil, how do you expect increasing the supply to achieve higher standards in Brazil?
Because this is literally what the trade deal deals with.
“Standards are poor when they haven’t committed to raising them so how will standards get better when they sign a legally binding document that commits them to raising them” -
I honestly don't have a notion of what things are like for farmers right now but as a consumer I don't want our country flooded with that stuff. I eat enough rolls from service station hungover to ever be able to protect myself against
We currently export in the realm of 492k tonnes of beef, and consume about 94k tonnes.
Total allowable beef imports under Mercosur to the entire EU bloc is 99k.
Assuming beef imports will be roughly equal across the bloc, we would get about 10k tonnes of beef, or about 11% of our total beef consumption, and about 2% of our total beef production.
Irish farmers aren't worried about the Irish beef market, they make their money selling beef to the EU and UK. They're worried about competition in the export market that can undercut their prices internationally.
I don't understand why we should care so much about them. Consumers benefit from having a more competitive and diverse market, the products will be cheaper. Why should everyone make sacrifices to prop up an industry that apparently can't compete? I could understand arguments about health standards, but even if there wasn't any issues, I don't think farmers would change their opinion an inch.
We're in a time where we should really work on building trade relationships rather now more than ever, so this kind of stuff is really important
Doesn't matter 2 fucks lads, those VWs and Stelatis cars built in France and Italy have to be sold somewhere! Agri is only a small part of the deal, the one that effects us granted, but this deal is going through!
Now, STFU and eat your hormones.
Interesting to see how little beef is actually involved, given the huge amount of attention that the agribusiness lobby have managed to generate on this:
A maximum limit (quota) will be put on the amount of agri-food products imported from Mercosur that benefit from lower tariffs:
99,000 tonnes for beef: this corresponds to 1.5% of the EU’s total production;
Lots of people think the entire deal is about beef imports, when it will barely have an effect on them.
And the deal's expected to cause Irish beef production to fall by a maximum of 0.08%. The scaremongering we've heard from some quarters just isn't based in reality.
They want to be able to sell more beef to a market where there is premium pricing. That said, they are not that keen on the fact that the deal will impose additional regulatory requirements on traceability and deforestation.
That's kind of how a trade deal works - nobody gets everything they want.
There are bans on farms which have been built on deforested land, but not on cattle fed on feed grown on deforested lands. We’re swapping relatively low carbon beef grown here with high carbon beef grown in Brazil. Just so VW can sell a few cars.
Ireland is also a significant importer of feed - our beef and dairy industry can't survive without it.
that is just not true. the imported feed is supplementery.. if it stopped in the morning we wouldnt have animals dying of starvation or anything.
and the statement ignores the economic factor or our high imports. Our tillage is low because we are not competitive at it on the market. it doesnt mean we are incapable of growing it.
If soya was lost, it would be replaced with the traditional grains and other sources like beet & kale. the increase demand could, beyound the intial spike, increase the price of grains which could restore some tillage
It doesn't ignore economic factors, it takes them into account. If we're talking about the productivity of a sector that is heavily export driven then the extent to which it is competitive is kind of important.
I'm talking about the industry surviving, not individual animals. They are destined for slaughter, and the cost of input per kg is the major determinant of profit and competitiveness.
Your question makes no sense. There's no "if". It's a simple, indisputible fact that the deal will reduce tariffs on just 99,000 tonnes of beef. If anyone wants to increase that to 99,001 tonnes, they'll need to renegotiate the deal and we'll go through the approval process all over again.
And it's mad to hear an Irish person asking why people are keen on trade deals like it's some sort of conspiracy.
It's actually shocking. We've built our wealth on the back of globalisation but don't want to concede an inch. Farmers may say how does that help me, but do they think the government would be able to subsidise them in the way they do without our tax take? Christ befecked. And lets not forget, farmers evidently understand the whole thing, 90% of our beef is exported. They have fully benefited from globalisation and trade.
If I was the EU, after all the strife we put them through with Apple, all the support they gave us over Brexit, I'd be putting Irish needs down the bottom of the pile.
Edit: to be clear, I considerably value Irish farming and the products they produce, and believe they need and deserve support. But they make it fucking difficult. Instead of saying we're willing to do what needs to be done in exchange for x, y, z, it's just a flat no everytime. Frequently asking and refusing to give.
That's not how trade deals work. Any increase to the 99,000 tonnes would need to go through the same negotiation & approval process all over again which would take years and face the same political opposition.
Yes, because they fucked themselves over by moving some of their manufacturing to China, but now China doesn't buy their cars. So they are left trying to export their cars back to Europe, without the benefit of state subsidies.
Another idiotic move by our Government, isn't exactly a surprise.
If you don't have a joint venture in China for local production, there are tartifs that basically means you won't sell any cars there. This isn't about local production but more about how sales in china have collapsed due to the massive improvement in the Chinese car offering at prices much lower than German or American manufacturers. Massive loss in revenue is not good for any industry, but especially at a time when EVs are less and less profitable. China is leading the world in battery tech and is selling their materials at an artificially low price due to government incentives to Chinese car manufacturers. China is definitely better at cheaper manufacturing that Europe but there is sneaky stuff going on there too. It's fair that politicians are looking at how they can help deal with this massive shock or it will be the end of European manufacturing in general, not just cars.
German car companies expanded into China 20+ years ago. Before this there was a very low standard of Chinese car, which didn't do well internationally, or even domestically.
The germans trained up the locals, and drastically improved their car and manufacturing processes.
Now that EVs have become so popular, the Chinese manufacturers have used the German car companies to teach them, and bring their cars ahead of those produced in Europe.
We now have this deal which is benefitting german car manufacturers as they are left with factories in China, which are producing cars, which can't be sold there, and they need new markets for.
China’s EV push is not a success story, it is a destructive overcapacity strategy aimed at the rest of the world. China has built far more EV manufacturing capacity than the global market can absorb and is now dumping that surplus abroad. With roughly 150 Chinese EV brands, most of them loss making, the sector survives on state backing, cheap credit, and tolerance for long term insolvency. Firms can sell below cost for years, not because they are better, but because the objective is to wipe out foreign competitors. Once competition is gone, prices rise and dependency sets in. That is not innovation, it is industrial sabotage.
This matters politically as well as economically. Every purchase of a Chinese EV strengthens a system that directly backs Russia’s war against Europe. Without Chinese economic, industrial, and diplomatic support, Russia could not sustain that war. Buying into Chinese state backed industries is not a neutral consumer choice, it actively funds a bloc that is hostile to European security and stability.
There is also a hard strategic risk being ignored. If China invades Taiwan, Chinese connected vehicles outside China instantly become liabilities. Software support, updates, cloud services, spare parts, and warranties would be vulnerable to sanctions, export controls, or outright shutdowns. In that scenario, many of these vehicles risk becoming extremely expensive bricks overnight. Europe has already learned this lesson once with energy dependence. Repeating it with transport is reckless.
Europe, meanwhile, is breaking through despite playing by real rules. European manufacturers operate under strict labour laws, environmental standards, safety regulation, and long term liability. They have to be profitable and sustainable. Yet they are delivering competitive EVs without relying on state backed dumping. The Renault 5 is a clear example: affordable, profitable, built to EU standards, is not dependent on Chinese supply chains, and cheaper than most Chinese imports while meeting higher compliance requirements. That directly undermines the claim that Chinese EVs win on merit alone.
On batteries, claims that China is definitively ahead on solid state are propaganda. Loud announcements are not the same as scalable, safe, commercial delivery. If solid state or alternative chemistries break through outside China, it could render two decades of Chinese subsidies and rare earth supply chain investment far less decisive than claimed. With inevitable consolidation coming and most Chinese EV brands unlikely to survive the medium to long term, this is not a story of Europe falling behind. It is Europe proving that industrial resilience, real profitability, and strategic independence still matter.
It's not a massive amount, it's under 100k tonnes and a rounding error in terms of current production.
In what sense is it the thin end of the wedge? A change would require a new agreement. That's just the usual slippery slope fallacy used by those who've been caught out in a lie.
The deadweight of cattle here usually ranges between 300-400kg. So by that math, 100k tons is between 200,000 - 300,000 animals worth of beef that is being brought in.
Its an aweful lot of meat.
Aside from the fact that farmers here are obliged to meet standards that the imported beef isnt, its a very unfair playing field.
The great concern for farmers here is that the 99,000 tonnes will be mostly, if not entirely, composed of the highest value 'prime' cuts: steak, roasts, etc.
These cuts make up about 15% of the total meat yield, so in the range of 50-60kg/carcass, which is about 1.8 million animals worth.
These imported prime cuts displace the prime cuts of 1.8 million European cattle, which devalues the entire meat yield of these cattle, 600,000 tonnes or so, and is a very useful tool for the meat processors and major retailers to hold over local European producers.
You can try to slice it any way you like, it is a rounding error in terms of EU production. That is the additional competition that is being talked about. That is the potential impact on prices: the effect of a reduction of less than 8% in the price of 1.5% of current beef production.
Theres not 8% margin for beef farmers at the current price.
Animals in 2024 for 2025 cost about 1000 euro.
Animals in 2025 for 2026 cost close to 2000 euro.
And you are OK with the sell price to drop? It will shut down anyone who's not farming at the scale of 500+ Animals who can make a living out of a margin of 2 or 3%
I didn't say there was an 8% margin - you are jumping on a figure and applying it in a way that makes no sense. Total non sequitur stuff to avoid dealing with the issue.
I pointed out that the effect of the deal is to eliminate the tariffs on imports (which are less than 8%) of a tiny fraction (1.5%) of EU production. The impact of that on prices is marginal, because the amounts involved are marginal.
If we're being really pedantic (and it seems we are) then yes it is. The magnitude of a rounding error is strictly a function of the resolution at which the figure is reported.
No matter how you do the "math", it's still only about 1% of the EU's beef consumption (and the EU only accounts for 34% of our agri-food exports) so the impact here will be minimal.
IFA is one of the biggest lobbying groups. They'll oppose even the smallest impacts to protect fsrmers. On top of that Irish people are keen on buying Irish when it comes to meat so it's a difficult market to get into
This is true, but it's worth remembering that the material interests of farmers are not the same as those of the IFA.
Their interests are those of the large agri-food corporations. That's down to how the IFA is funded.
The IFA have three sources of funding, membership fees, IFA telecom, and levies on the sale of beef and milk etc. The first is fairly static and not that amenable to increase, farmers won't bear a huge increase in membership fees. The second is not especially large. The third is the real money maker, but they have had problems due to Goodman's companies refusing to cooperate with the levy. The IFA thus ends up constantly advocating for more and more development of production - more milk exported at higher value and more beef exported means more money for the IFA through the levy. The end result is a farming lobby group that acts mostly in the interests of large agricultural producers because their financial interests are tied to their exporting strength. Ever greater production of milk and beef is not in the interests of most farmers, and certainly not in the interests of achieving climate goals, but the IFA will never move away from that so long as their pocketbook demands more production.
It is not the interests of farmers that are prioritised, but those of the exporters who make gigantic profits and engage in stock buybacks to enrich shareholders. Meanwhile the average family farm makes 70% of its income from government subsidies but the IFA wants to convince us it's the exports that they depend on.
It is a minuscule amount of beef in the grand scheme of things. In fact I doubt we will be seeing it on supermarket shelves, 99,000 tonnes across the entire continent would get consumed by Brazilian restaurants and the 1.8 million Brazilians living in the EU alone.
Sure let's increase your personal taxes by 1% and then let us know how you feel. Sure it's only 1%, hardly anything, it'll barely have an effect on you
Except this is analogous to an increase in taxes of 1%. It is a decrease in tariffs (less than 8%) on 1.5% of production. A fraction of a fraction in terms of impact.
Seems like beef is only a tiny part of this. Are we letting farmers dictate our economy again despite being massively subsidised and catered to already?
Good, its crazy to ask us to reduce our CO2 under the threat of massive fines, whilst on the other hand incentivizing Brazilian farmers to cut down more Rain Forest to use for grazing land to produce beef.
We also export 90% of our beef to countries that sell it for less than we can buy it for ourselves.
Instead of importing frankenbeef from South
American slash and burn ranches, maybe we could limit some of our exports to a level that both allows us to feed our animals with the feed we can produce and sell it at a price that Irish households can afford.
You can buy Irish beef in France, Germany and Switzerland for less per kg than you can buy it here so someone’s fucking us over domestically.
Reality is if you eat beef you are cutting down the rain forest. They are either grazing cattle on it or growing feed on it. There is no moral high ground here.
Ireland is a major producer of pharmaceutical goods which the Mercosur deal allows to be exported to an entire continent. This will create jobs in Ireland that dont currently exist.
Thank god. Farmers holding back the rest of society for long enough. At a time when beef prices in ireland have never been hogher and farmers i know will happily admit the demand is getting them a nice wage on top of all the welfare rhe EU already gives them.
Surprised they took a break from pouring nitrates into our rivers amd lakes but I guess theyll never miss an opportunity to play the victim.
Why is it bad for farmers to earn a nice wage but when something threatens the nice wages of people working in US tech or pharma companies we need to kiss Trump's feet to protect them?
Have you considered tht pharmaceuticals are a far more important revenue generator in the Irish export economy and is 5 times larger than that of the agricultural exports?
We will literally make more money from Mercosur and everyone is getting hung up because Irish farmers superior beef will have to compete for 1.5% of the European Market with inferior Brazil beef. The 98.5% of the beef market remains protected.
Have you considered that pharma companies are US based and there has already been threats to pull them out of here and move them back to America. Look what Trump is doing, we’re at their mercy if we take your approach
Exactly that, look at what he is doing. Not what he is saying.
The reality is Trump says a lot. Pharmaceutical plants aren't something you can just dismantle and ship to the US during what remains of his term in office, and especially not in the time that (hopefully) will coincide when Republican holding the US Congress.
The other person's approach is that we remove trade barriers between Europe and most of South America. That lessens our dependence on the US.
Agriculture represents 1% of Irish GDP, with beef being some fraction of that. We should not be holding back the rest of the economy to shield that sector from a tiny bit of competition.
Investment has slowed down in pharma but thats expansion. Our main plants are going nowhere. I work in the industry and can tell you Trump hasn't a clue. The cost, time and resources required to move a plant means he'll be long gone before its even half possible
This will disproportionately affect Ireland and our export economy. It’s that simple.
I point out that we stand to gain more than we lose because pharma is far more important to the economy and actually doesnt need subsidies and you want to pretend like Mercosur is a purely a beef trade deal.
Trade deals are give and take. You cant expect for us to gain improved access to their markets and not gove them anything in return. We're not even giving them 1.5% of our beef market. We're allowing them to compete for that sliver and Irish farmers seem to think they make the best product on the planet do why are we even worrying?
And the sad thing is, there are plenty of well intentioned people here that are missing the forest for the trees. It’s the same problematic far right voters have when they focus excessively on migration, ignoring bigger issues.
It’s quite clear this deal goes way beyond beef and has the potential to be a win-win for all parts. Going full on against it just because of small concerns against it is like, I don’t know, requesting a large judicial review for a metro project because it will cause some disruption during construction in front of your house?
yes, our pharma industry will benefit massively from the removal of the current 14% tariffs and the ability to export more to a new continent. Absolutely no one is talking about this. Its a huge trade deal that has been 25 years in the making yet if you read the Irish media you would think it is only about beef.
In an era marked by global economic uncertainty—shaped by shifting geopolitical realities and a rapidly evolving international trading landscape—it is vital that we continue to support Irish businesses and maximise trading opportunities across the globe. Our long-standing relationships with established markets remain a cornerstone of our success and we will seek to deepen these relationships, but we must also prioritise new partnerships with high-growth regions that offer fresh opportunities. Ireland’s economic model is built on open access to global markets, underpinned by free-flowing trade and investment.
"The European Commission's own audit in 2024 confirmed that Brazil cannot guarantee hormone-free beef, yet under Mercosur, exporters can self-certify."
Well that just makes a farce of the entire "oh our food standards are the highest in the world".
Couple this with the CSAM/Chat control "fuck your privacy" attitude as of late, the EU is giving the anti-EU/far-right groups all the fuel they need.
It's very disappointing at a time when the EU could stand for something as the USA self-destructs.
Ok, people do not understand this at all. Why are we saying no to Brazilian beef? The same reason we say no to American beef. They use growth hormones to make cattle put on more weight quicker. That's illegal in the EU.
One of these hormones is melengestrol acetate, aka MGA. It is a synthetic progestin hormone that is supposed to mimic progesterone, aka the same hormone used in birth control. That will be in the meat coming from Brazil.
What do high doses of MGA do to humans? I'm glad you asked. It can obviously disrupt the menstrual cycle for women, cause serious weight gain, endema, fucks with your blood sugar, can bring on fertility issues in women and erectile dysfunction in men, cause blood clothing and it can even increase risk of heart attacks and strokes. And this is just one of the synthetic hormones they receive.
Do you really want beef on the market that can cause issues like this as the amount of MGA used on the cattle in the Americas is largely unregulated. While you may piss and moan about Irish farmers, the worst thing that goes into Irish cattle is vaccines and antibiotics when they are sick. Our farmers follow strict regulations set out by the Irish government and EU, and all meat is tested. Anything deemed unsafe for the food supply is not allowed to be sold. If the Mercosur deal comes through, you can say goodbye to the biosecurity of the food that we eat.
Níl aon rud eile agamsa a rá. Ach má theipeann air seo, beidh mise fiafheoil á ithe feasta.
This is a completely incoherent deal that exports environmental damage rather than reducing it while the EU tells countries to reduce their carbon emissions. You can see the problem when the EU have done a deal that really just cuts tariffs for large industrial machinery and cars, while the people get very little benefit. It's basically a deal for the German car industry.
The sustainability mechanisms in this deal are so weak that we would basically be voting to destroy the Amazon and Cerrado, which screws over indigenous people in those countries while encouraging carbon intensive imports so the EU can say we have reduced emissions by X. I don't know anyone that wants to eat Brazilian beef. Why not just do a deal with the US and get started on the chlorinated chicken while they are at it?
Anyone supporting this deal is either German or doesn't have their head screwed on, or possibly both.
No FTA is 100% perfect but perfect shouldn’t be the enemy of the good. In a time of big country politics & Chinese massive exports, EU should join with as many partners as it can to compete. EU per capita GDP is half that of the U.S. (in 2009 it was the same). EU is becoming non-competitive.
I am Brazilian and I agree with this. For many decades Brazil's meat and animal production has been plagued with growth hormones, antibiotics, pesticides, and every possible agro toxin out there. Every couple of years a new political scandal involving meat emerges, the last one they were using some kind of chemical to keep meat looking nice and red when they are about to expire and extending the dates. Please keep you and your family safe and dont buy anything from Brazil, including veggies, fruits, grains, etc.
I don't think this is good. The government already fought hard to win the right of farmers to continue poisoning waterways. Now they roll in behind farmers again on this issue, rather than on the side of friendship and free trade with the people of South America when we should all be trying to reduce USAmerican influence on our economies.
You'll be down voted but youre right. We make 5 times more from pharma exports than agricultural exports and are opening up a whole new market for our pharma industry in exchange for allowing Brazilian beef try to compete for 1.5% of the European Market.
On top of that we will literally soon be getting fined for missed carbon emission targets because our herd number is too high.
People cant see the woods from tress on Mercosur at all.
A massive deal to both continents. South America will be floaded with high quality products (dairy, cars, beef etc) with a lower import tax. Europe will make tons of money.
As for the food from Brazil, you must be aware that to sell to the European market, the producers must follow strict standards. It’s not like “whatever I produce I sell”.
Although I’m all for diversifying trading to reduce dependency from single countries, specially considering our geographic limitations, quality and health standards must come first. Besides, even if Irish beef wasn’t enough to feed ireland, Italians have amazing quality produce too.
Brazil might be brilliant on their cuts and barbecue techniques, but the meat quality control is really poor from what brazilians living here mentioned to me at work, praising our beef for its superior quality.
I’m sure mercosur has a whole other options of good imports to offer, if this is about Germans trying to sell cars, but what goes into our bodies shouldn’t suffer in quality because of their lack of innovation.
I will never buy non Irish non eu meat or dairy furtherest il go is Germany for meat too risky meat n dairy is very easy to get sick n die big fear almost paranoia levels n im not ashamed of it call be cist or whatever i expect extreme high standstill almost autistic levels when comes to meat especially chicken
I don't see why we care more about beef farmers which is one single sliver of 1% of our economy over manufacturing and services which make up the other 99%.
Maybe if the EU take another look at the awful fisheries restrictions they put on Ireland a couple of weeks ago Ireland could take another look at Mercosur?
I do wonder if this is internal EU politics at play, rather than genuine concern for the deal.
Why are they destroying local agriculture to import substandard product. In a volatile geopolitical world local food security should be a priority. We learned that the hard way during the pandemic.
Irish agriculture is propped up hand over fist with subsidies. The agreement has put out limits of imports and even further subsidies in the event of a disruption to farmers
The subsidies are there to off set the limits on production. Farmers could produce more but then food prices would get too low we might get oversupply. This is a deal to open up markets for automakers, not food quality or price
Removes tariffs, barriers and improves many Irish based products and services. Billions worth of business made easier that will likely grow much further. In return, 99,000 tonnes of beef are added to the market.
Farmers will be looked after regardless, seems like a win for Ireland and Irish business.
I would agree if that was the case but it isn't, we have quotas on production and heard count farmers want to farm, it is obvious that this isn't going to help Irish beef farmers. Free trade and open Markets are great but the EU is setup to be protectionist and this is sacraficing farmers for other industries. No wonder they are against it.
Brazil has serious flaws in its traceability - antibiotics and growth hormones (illegal in the EU) can be bought over the counter without ID.
Their beef makes a mockery of the standards that EU farmers are legally obliged to meet.
Letting more Brazilian beef into Europe increases risks of contamination of our food chain, poor traceability makes it difficult to track if something does go wrong.
It makes zero sense for us to be importing beef from another continent. How are we supposed to tackle climate change when we're shipping products that already exist in the destination country just to line some peoples pockets?
The main / only reason it’s being done is because the German car industry has failed / refused to innovate and the German government believes that finding a new market is a substitute for innovation, despite their competition moving into those same markets at the same time.
Italy is also a major producer of industrial machinery.
Germany chased Chinese money, they are actively ruining their cars to make them appeal to Chinese buyers and Chinese buyers are having none of it because they can get cars they want for a fraction of the price in China. It will be the same in every country, if Germany tries to make Chinese cars they will fail utterly.
How so? Chinese cars seem better than german ones now, and cheaper to boot. That's a big reason they increased the import tax so much to make Chinese cars uncompetitive in Europe.
China has innovated. Germany refused to innovate.
When VW was hiding their fudging of emissions rates, BYD was investing into R&D for EV and is now the industry leader.
The Germans have crashed out and now think that the Brazilian market is their answer when 1 their cars are too expensive for that market, 2 their EVs are worse than BYD, and 3 BYD are entering that market at a cheaper price.
The German government is at all times trying to coddle its extremely innovation adverse car industry.
They’ve been dominated by BYD and they’re refusing to do the one thing that will save them, innovate.
China innovated? You mean stole and reverse engineered German technology. It's the German's own naivety and shortsightedness to blame too but let's not heap too much praise on the Chinese for innovation.
No one forced German companies to set up manufacturing in China and that’s how Chinese companies steal technology. As you said. Naivety.
Either way, through good or bad, BYD has out innovated the German manufacturers, maybe they should have considered keeping their manufacturing in the EU.
Everyone reverse engineers their competitions products, that's how it always has worked and always will work
I know I was like that's a hot take, the Chinese folks I know who have German cars (one did a pink merc with diamond style grill) only want the badge because it was "expensive" and are secretly not happy with the cars because their relatives cars are leaps and bounds better for half the price.
Chinese cars are not better than German. Chinese cars have lots of tech, but build quality still isn't there. they have cars for city commutes, they don't need sporty, they want comfort and entertainment. How the car performs matter less because it will be doing low speeds in cities.
European cars grew up on European roads last century. The roads set the bar for what made the car good. Now European manufacturers are trying to play the Chinese at their own game and they just can't. They will never beat the Chinese at making cars that Chinese people like.
Because we export 80% of our beef. We produce enough to meet Irish demand 5 times over.
I think we should have an internal agreement with European farmers. Europe doesn't need to import food it's already producing. The only reason to import food is for profit, and its often profit at the expense of labour exploitation.
We could call the agreement "the EU".
How about something modern and innovative like The European Steel and Coal Community?
How about "The War to End all Wars"
That just sounds irresistible right now
They called it “The Great War” too! There was fuckall great about it, and if anything, it started countless more wars. Both bogus names for it 😂
Why limit it to just coal and Steele, it should be an economic community. /s
The neck ofEU!!!
And our environment suffers as well. Effluent runoff polluting our water systems while we export close to 90% of beef produced. Profit over environment.
Ireland has the highest standards of agriculture in the world. We have the strictest legislation regarding pollution, waste, animal welfare, you name it. If you want to ethical, environmentally conscious food, Ireland is number one. We even have stricter rules that the EU put on us! You should see how they do things in Spain or Greece! Never mind in Brazil 🤣 north and South America are famous for putting profits ahead of the environment or the planet! We’re literally the opposite! Irish food is produced under the most optimum conditions in terms of our grass rich land and wet weather, that paired with the highest agri standards in the world? We have such an abundance of natural and healthy food that’s not cost prohibitive. Try ordering organic grass fed beef in America or some where! Be multiple times the price of here
So there! Something else for you to be proud of because you’re Irish!
Our pollution has been increasing yearly re EPA reports. So maybe we need to do better and increase our already 'high standards'. We used to be 90% forest now we're 85% fields. Yearly hedgerow control (destruction), half unnecessary, looks like a dystopian war scape sometimes.
We could reduce meat production(animal slaughter) by 50% and we would still have enough to feed the country 5 times over. Export less for a better environment and more biodiversity.
Our inbreds still hunt foxes on horses with dogs(lobbiest controlled), and we subsidise dog and horse racing for essentially the gambling industry. So the 'animal welfare' legislation is not very good either.
A more balanced Landscape would be nice, that's all.
Our agriculture is held to the highest standards in the world I said.
By the way we’re planting trees more than ever before, actual trees to make woodlands, not the shite that collite grow for harvest. And it’s all being done by private citizens, farmers and landowners in Ireland. With the last 15 years Ireland has gone from strength to strength in terms of promoting and implementing biodiversity and natural habitats. I’d know as I have several of them
So yea it’s you need the education. Do you thing the farmers in Brazil are planting trees and improving biodiversity?
Cmon man stop being so anti farmer here. We’re held to the highest standards in the world and I’m proud of that. You can be too unless you just decide you don’t want to be.
Where would you like our food to come from? Shipped from I should say? What country produces food like us better? And as ethical?
Doesn’t sound like you’ve worked on many livestock farms around the world, cos if you did, you’d have some horror stories!
I'm not anti farmer. More biodiversity is not anti farmer.
The loss of forests is a historic issue, not something farmers today are responsible for. Almost no Irish farmers don’t hunt foxes on horseback with hounds. That’s just a nonsense. There’s more lawyers doing it than farmers. We need to be more harsh on polluters because it is bringing the industry into disrepute. We also need to overhaul our forestry sector which is incredibly polluting.
Yea the forstry industry is owned by an international logging company for all intents and purposes! We don’t know who the shareholders of Coillte are, yet they make sure that wood fired power plants in the UK or global lumber companies have a constant supply
It’s nuts that we think Coillte is “the government body that maintains our woodlands” I mean I know they do call themselves that, but they’re a logging company. They ship out cheap trees, and we import lengths of 4x2 the price of a night out 🤣
I have cousins in Leitrim who have received a flyer in the letterbox telling them to keep their kids and pets indoors on particular days because they were spraying the trees for weevils or something. Imagine that landing on the doormat in Foxrock?
Too much you might say…?
On the same grounds it makes zero sense for Ireland to be exporting butter and cheese to another continent. If you want to take a stand on an issue of principle start at home.
People import Irish butter because of the quality, grass fed, and branding. They probably could produce similar butter locally. There are lots of products like that.
It's all about the cash sheet in the modern world though. It could produce tonnes of pollution and kill a person per tonne produced and none of that would matter if the cash sheet looks good.
I think climate change and pollution are unsolvable in our current capitalist society, and we have no intention of changing.
You’re right, ireland is one of the most trade dependent countries in the world, it’s made us “rich”, and we have no intention of changing, and no sign of us taking any of the difficult steps required to meet the climate targets we agreed to, except blame other countries and pull up the ladder behind us.
The issue is the EU has implemented a number of rules to ensure a minimum quality of domestically produced foods, and stable prices (production quotas). This pushes costs and therefore prices of domestic produce up.
Now they are reducing import tariffs for the same products produced overseas which do not have to meet the same quality standards or the same production quotas.
So they are artificially pushing costs of domestic products up while allowing undercutting by overseas suppliers.
As for the argeument of consumer “freedom to choose”, if that was the goal why would the EU ever implement minimum quality standards? Why not just let the market self regulate? Because it doesn’t work and swiftly becomes a race to the bottom.
That race to the bottom is what the EU has tried to avoid until now with regulation and quotas. So it is anything bug a free market. This is what makes the free market argument so disingenuous - the imports are allowed a free market, but the domestic produce is not.
Your Irish butter argument actually doesn’t fit to the main argument in favour of the deal. It is never the cheapest butter option in the supermarket, but is the higher quality/price option. That is not what the Mercosur deal will bring in, it will instead bring in cheaper, lower quality produce, cheaper and lower quality than is legal to produce in the EU.
Ours is the best. People want it because they cannot produce it in their own countries, food is not like a commodity made of steel, its quality is highly dependent on what country it came from. You could set up an automated car factory in any country, and once you follow the protocol, the exact same stuff will roll out the door no matter where it it. Food is highly dependent on climate, land and farming practices
If it’s the environment we’re worried about then the beef itself is a far bigger issue than its importation.
We can do both. Perfect is the enemy of good. I don't eat meat but voting against Mercosur is a good step and not importing meat we produce more than enough of is also a good step.
Ireland has always been a producer of beef. The fact we can't produce other things that well should count in our favour. It's not the same as a corporation building a farm in a region that can't grow grass and importing food and water to feed penned cattle.
If we organise with the rest of Europe we should be Europe's meet producer and we buy crops from Europe.
Anyone in here pretending this is about anything other than Ireland's protectionist self interest is deluisional!
Exactly. That deal was a deal for German cars etc to flood the South American market. Beef was just all that was spoken about. And Germany will sacrifice anything, including the environment, to flog their overpriced, luxury , disposable cars into countries that don’t need them! Look what Volkswagen did a few years back when they wanted to flood the North American market?! 🤣 pure lunatics
We are already facing huge carbon emissions fines because we refuse to stop exporting vast amounts of beef. Do you propose we stop beef exports to China? Let's stop pretending people against this deal care about the environment. They decimated the greens in the last election because climate action annoys them.
Agriculture in general is a tricky one because less irish beef doesn't offset the demand. It opens up the market for beef production somewhere else and the likes of Brazil do it far worse than us. With irish beef you can't just look at it in an Irish context because people talk of irish beef as we produce so much and it just gets wasted away. You have to look at it from a European context and irish beef among others fills gaps in other countries who don't produce as much beef as us and instead have been able to focus that bit more on other forms of agriculture.
Food production is better viewed from the EU level.
👆
Surely zero sense to impoet their animal feed then.
If they have a system for making silage and it runs out for whatever reason, some years are bad, then it's a necessity to import feed.
I have no issue importing things we need, or things we can't produce here. But importing something that's also being produced down the road from me makes no sense.
You do know we can produce animal feed. You do know also we export most of our beef.
We imported 660k tonnes(2023) of animal feed from Argentina which also makes zero sense if you listen to the IFA.
Modern shipping operates at such a scale that the amount of carbon emissions for each kilo of cargo are pretty small.
I saw someone run the numbers on it a few years back for some fruit that had travelled most of the way around the world by distance (grown, packed, and sold each an ocean apart) and driving to and from the shop to buy it released significantly more co2 per unit.
That's an accounting trick though. It completely side steps the fact they produce millions of tonnes of carbon and pollution every year, anything looks small when you cut it up into microscopic pieces and just look at one of those microscopic pieces. The pollution and damage to environments doesn't go away because it's efficient.
We are moving stuff around the planet that doesn't need to be moved. We are transporting things back and over the planet because of the economics, we completely disregard every other factor.
I think it’s time you realise these corporations and governments don’t care about climate change or health of the citizens they have a new god they worship n it’s money above all else
Not just that, but products for which production is restricted by quotas here. Quotes implemented by the EU to stabilise prices, which they now undercut with imported beef
Yes that is one of the main issues I have with it. I would worry that the lower farming standards in Brazil etc would be used as an argument to lower domestic production standards.
The EU is currently discussing the future Common Agricultural Policy for 2028-2034 where making EU farming more competitive is a big part of it. If the Mercosur deal comes in I'd imagine there will be a big push to lower standards based on competitiveness arguments to match their standards.
I don't think we need to be making farming more competitive. Our focus should be on environment and animal welfare. "More competitive" means lower prices, which means farmers working more for less, and animal welfare will suffer.
And who are we competing with? we shouldn't be trying to compete at the bottom end of the market with countries that have lower standards. We force our own farmers to raise standards and cut costs, but then buy from a foreign farmer, with much lower standards and an exploited work force. All these things only benefit money people who are skimming the wealth from the ordinary workers.
If this country cared about animal welfare we wouldn't still have greyhound racing and fox hunting, and animal abuse laws would be updated so abusers would see harsher consequences.
You do know competitive doesn't mean "make cheaper" 😂.
Having better animal warfare, or "non-steriod filled beef" would be quite competitive on the quality scale.
Having more products or range makes you more competitive
People litterally pop up niche markets around premium products which adds to competition...
When someone buys that premium product, that's one less person buying cheap steroid filled beef. If you don't have competition and all you can buy is steroid filled beef, then that's all you're going to get.
So no, being more competitive can mean many things. The reality is however, people will typically buy the cheapest largely because good doesn't get labeled as "steroid filled beef that may be harmful to you"
Maybe if food was labelled like cigarettes, it would be very competitive for Europe when shit gets imported
"steroid filled beef" "abused and bruised chicken beasts"
It’s quite the opposite, the terms of the deal bake in higher standards in Brazil to meet EU standards
Which is never going to happen, because that would mean higher costs for Brazil. Brazil will fake their standards to sell to Europe and Europe will accept it because Germany wants to sell to Brazil
Thats just conspiracy theory
Considering there is no antibiotic or steroid tracing in Brazil, and that Ireland has already found contaminated beef in the existing limited supply from Brazil, how do you expect increasing the supply to achieve higher standards in Brazil?
Because this is literally what the trade deal deals with.
“Standards are poor when they haven’t committed to raising them so how will standards get better when they sign a legally binding document that commits them to raising them” -
They are legally obliged to meet EU standards today, they just pay high tariffs for imports.
It's already allowed in. The issue is how much on tariffs is applied to a fraction of what is already imported into the bloc.
Worrying since Brazilian corporations own meat companies in Ireland and Europe.
I honestly don't have a notion of what things are like for farmers right now but as a consumer I don't want our country flooded with that stuff. I eat enough rolls from service station hungover to ever be able to protect myself against
The beef quota under the terms of the deal represents 1.6% of EU beef consumption...
We currently export in the realm of 492k tonnes of beef, and consume about 94k tonnes.
Total allowable beef imports under Mercosur to the entire EU bloc is 99k.
Assuming beef imports will be roughly equal across the bloc, we would get about 10k tonnes of beef, or about 11% of our total beef consumption, and about 2% of our total beef production.
Irish farmers aren't worried about the Irish beef market, they make their money selling beef to the EU and UK. They're worried about competition in the export market that can undercut their prices internationally.
I don't understand why we should care so much about them. Consumers benefit from having a more competitive and diverse market, the products will be cheaper. Why should everyone make sacrifices to prop up an industry that apparently can't compete? I could understand arguments about health standards, but even if there wasn't any issues, I don't think farmers would change their opinion an inch.
We're in a time where we should really work on building trade relationships rather now more than ever, so this kind of stuff is really important
Doesn't matter 2 fucks lads, those VWs and Stelatis cars built in France and Italy have to be sold somewhere! Agri is only a small part of the deal, the one that effects us granted, but this deal is going through! Now, STFU and eat your hormones.
Theres a handy website here that shows how this deal will impact Ireland: https://policy.trade.ec.europa.eu/eu-trade-relationships-country-and-region/countries-and-regions/mercosur/eu-mercosur-agreement/factsheet-eu-mercosur-partnership-agreement-ireland_en
Interesting to see how little beef is actually involved, given the huge amount of attention that the agribusiness lobby have managed to generate on this:
Lots of people think the entire deal is about beef imports, when it will barely have an effect on them.
And the deal's expected to cause Irish beef production to fall by a maximum of 0.08%. The scaremongering we've heard from some quarters just isn't based in reality.
That's literally 3,360 cattle out of the 4.2m beef herd.
So....a rounding errors amount of them?
Just like the scare mongering from the same crowd over the smallest climate action and biodiversity policies.
Thin end of the wedge.
"I know that I'm lying, but what if I actually wasn't? What then?"
If it's so little beef, why are the Brazilians so keen to get it in here?
They want to be able to sell more beef to a market where there is premium pricing. That said, they are not that keen on the fact that the deal will impose additional regulatory requirements on traceability and deforestation.
That's kind of how a trade deal works - nobody gets everything they want.
There are bans on farms which have been built on deforested land, but not on cattle fed on feed grown on deforested lands. We’re swapping relatively low carbon beef grown here with high carbon beef grown in Brazil. Just so VW can sell a few cars.
Ireland is also a significant importer of feed - our beef and dairy industry can't survive without it.
Where is that grown? Would it be also on deforested land, because it's cheaper?
that is just not true. the imported feed is supplementery.. if it stopped in the morning we wouldnt have animals dying of starvation or anything.
and the statement ignores the economic factor or our high imports. Our tillage is low because we are not competitive at it on the market. it doesnt mean we are incapable of growing it.
If soya was lost, it would be replaced with the traditional grains and other sources like beet & kale. the increase demand could, beyound the intial spike, increase the price of grains which could restore some tillage
It doesn't ignore economic factors, it takes them into account. If we're talking about the productivity of a sector that is heavily export driven then the extent to which it is competitive is kind of important.
I'm talking about the industry surviving, not individual animals. They are destined for slaughter, and the cost of input per kg is the major determinant of profit and competitiveness.
We also grow a hell of a lot of grass.
Which isn't sufficient for our herd, resulting in Ireland being a net importer of calories.
Your question makes no sense. There's no "if". It's a simple, indisputible fact that the deal will reduce tariffs on just 99,000 tonnes of beef. If anyone wants to increase that to 99,001 tonnes, they'll need to renegotiate the deal and we'll go through the approval process all over again.
And it's mad to hear an Irish person asking why people are keen on trade deals like it's some sort of conspiracy.
It's actually shocking. We've built our wealth on the back of globalisation but don't want to concede an inch. Farmers may say how does that help me, but do they think the government would be able to subsidise them in the way they do without our tax take? Christ befecked. And lets not forget, farmers evidently understand the whole thing, 90% of our beef is exported. They have fully benefited from globalisation and trade.
If I was the EU, after all the strife we put them through with Apple, all the support they gave us over Brexit, I'd be putting Irish needs down the bottom of the pile.
Edit: to be clear, I considerably value Irish farming and the products they produce, and believe they need and deserve support. But they make it fucking difficult. Instead of saying we're willing to do what needs to be done in exchange for x, y, z, it's just a flat no everytime. Frequently asking and refusing to give.
Agriculture is the last holdout we have that hasn’t been completely opened up to globalisation.
But then wouldn't changes have to be voted on too?
Alot easier to tinker with something when its in place. Think of your 'temporary' taxes like USC, the 'student registration fee' or the likes.
That's not how trade deals work. Any increase to the 99,000 tonnes would need to go through the same negotiation & approval process all over again which would take years and face the same political opposition.
Ireland produces about 10% of annual EU beef output so we’re a major producer and would be disproportionately affected.
The deal is being done to benefit the German car manufacturing sector.
The German car manufacturing sector is also why we have trade tariffs with China.
Those companies got played when they expanded into China 20+ years ago and the entire continent is suffering for their naivety.
The Germans voted against tariffs on Chinese EVs. The Irish voted in favour of them for some reason, despite not producing cars at all.
Yes, because they fucked themselves over by moving some of their manufacturing to China, but now China doesn't buy their cars. So they are left trying to export their cars back to Europe, without the benefit of state subsidies.
Another idiotic move by our Government, isn't exactly a surprise.
If you don't have a joint venture in China for local production, there are tartifs that basically means you won't sell any cars there. This isn't about local production but more about how sales in china have collapsed due to the massive improvement in the Chinese car offering at prices much lower than German or American manufacturers. Massive loss in revenue is not good for any industry, but especially at a time when EVs are less and less profitable. China is leading the world in battery tech and is selling their materials at an artificially low price due to government incentives to Chinese car manufacturers. China is definitely better at cheaper manufacturing that Europe but there is sneaky stuff going on there too. It's fair that politicians are looking at how they can help deal with this massive shock or it will be the end of European manufacturing in general, not just cars.
Absolute lies, the Germans were adamantly against tariffs on Chinese ev to our detriment.
German car companies expanded into China 20+ years ago. Before this there was a very low standard of Chinese car, which didn't do well internationally, or even domestically.
The germans trained up the locals, and drastically improved their car and manufacturing processes.
Now that EVs have become so popular, the Chinese manufacturers have used the German car companies to teach them, and bring their cars ahead of those produced in Europe.
We now have this deal which is benefitting german car manufacturers as they are left with factories in China, which are producing cars, which can't be sold there, and they need new markets for.
China’s EV push is not a success story, it is a destructive overcapacity strategy aimed at the rest of the world. China has built far more EV manufacturing capacity than the global market can absorb and is now dumping that surplus abroad. With roughly 150 Chinese EV brands, most of them loss making, the sector survives on state backing, cheap credit, and tolerance for long term insolvency. Firms can sell below cost for years, not because they are better, but because the objective is to wipe out foreign competitors. Once competition is gone, prices rise and dependency sets in. That is not innovation, it is industrial sabotage.
This matters politically as well as economically. Every purchase of a Chinese EV strengthens a system that directly backs Russia’s war against Europe. Without Chinese economic, industrial, and diplomatic support, Russia could not sustain that war. Buying into Chinese state backed industries is not a neutral consumer choice, it actively funds a bloc that is hostile to European security and stability.
There is also a hard strategic risk being ignored. If China invades Taiwan, Chinese connected vehicles outside China instantly become liabilities. Software support, updates, cloud services, spare parts, and warranties would be vulnerable to sanctions, export controls, or outright shutdowns. In that scenario, many of these vehicles risk becoming extremely expensive bricks overnight. Europe has already learned this lesson once with energy dependence. Repeating it with transport is reckless.
Europe, meanwhile, is breaking through despite playing by real rules. European manufacturers operate under strict labour laws, environmental standards, safety regulation, and long term liability. They have to be profitable and sustainable. Yet they are delivering competitive EVs without relying on state backed dumping. The Renault 5 is a clear example: affordable, profitable, built to EU standards, is not dependent on Chinese supply chains, and cheaper than most Chinese imports while meeting higher compliance requirements. That directly undermines the claim that Chinese EVs win on merit alone.
On batteries, claims that China is definitively ahead on solid state are propaganda. Loud announcements are not the same as scalable, safe, commercial delivery. If solid state or alternative chemistries break through outside China, it could render two decades of Chinese subsidies and rare earth supply chain investment far less decisive than claimed. With inevitable consolidation coming and most Chinese EV brands unlikely to survive the medium to long term, this is not a story of Europe falling behind. It is Europe proving that industrial resilience, real profitability, and strategic independence still matter.
Car industry is more important for European jobs then a small amount of beef imports.
That's a lot. 1.5% of all EU production is a MASSIVE amount of beef, and as another commenter noted, thin end of the wedge
It's not a massive amount, it's under 100k tonnes and a rounding error in terms of current production.
In what sense is it the thin end of the wedge? A change would require a new agreement. That's just the usual slippery slope fallacy used by those who've been caught out in a lie.
The deadweight of cattle here usually ranges between 300-400kg. So by that math, 100k tons is between 200,000 - 300,000 animals worth of beef that is being brought in.
Its an aweful lot of meat.
Aside from the fact that farmers here are obliged to meet standards that the imported beef isnt, its a very unfair playing field.
The great concern for farmers here is that the 99,000 tonnes will be mostly, if not entirely, composed of the highest value 'prime' cuts: steak, roasts, etc. These cuts make up about 15% of the total meat yield, so in the range of 50-60kg/carcass, which is about 1.8 million animals worth. These imported prime cuts displace the prime cuts of 1.8 million European cattle, which devalues the entire meat yield of these cattle, 600,000 tonnes or so, and is a very useful tool for the meat processors and major retailers to hold over local European producers.
Edited for crappy maths!
This should be up top.
You can try to slice it any way you like, it is a rounding error in terms of EU production. That is the additional competition that is being talked about. That is the potential impact on prices: the effect of a reduction of less than 8% in the price of 1.5% of current beef production.
Theres not 8% margin for beef farmers at the current price.
Animals in 2024 for 2025 cost about 1000 euro. Animals in 2025 for 2026 cost close to 2000 euro.
And you are OK with the sell price to drop? It will shut down anyone who's not farming at the scale of 500+ Animals who can make a living out of a margin of 2 or 3%
I didn't say there was an 8% margin - you are jumping on a figure and applying it in a way that makes no sense. Total non sequitur stuff to avoid dealing with the issue.
I pointed out that the effect of the deal is to eliminate the tariffs on imports (which are less than 8%) of a tiny fraction (1.5%) of EU production. The impact of that on prices is marginal, because the amounts involved are marginal.
1.5% is not a rounding error
If we're being really pedantic (and it seems we are) then yes it is. The magnitude of a rounding error is strictly a function of the resolution at which the figure is reported.
If you're off by 1.5% it's not a rounding error, it's just shitty calculations.
Rounding isn't a matter of calculation, it's a matter of reporting resolution.
No matter how you do the "math", it's still only about 1% of the EU's beef consumption (and the EU only accounts for 34% of our agri-food exports) so the impact here will be minimal.
IFA is one of the biggest lobbying groups. They'll oppose even the smallest impacts to protect fsrmers. On top of that Irish people are keen on buying Irish when it comes to meat so it's a difficult market to get into
This is true, but it's worth remembering that the material interests of farmers are not the same as those of the IFA.
Their interests are those of the large agri-food corporations. That's down to how the IFA is funded.
The IFA have three sources of funding, membership fees, IFA telecom, and levies on the sale of beef and milk etc. The first is fairly static and not that amenable to increase, farmers won't bear a huge increase in membership fees. The second is not especially large. The third is the real money maker, but they have had problems due to Goodman's companies refusing to cooperate with the levy. The IFA thus ends up constantly advocating for more and more development of production - more milk exported at higher value and more beef exported means more money for the IFA through the levy. The end result is a farming lobby group that acts mostly in the interests of large agricultural producers because their financial interests are tied to their exporting strength. Ever greater production of milk and beef is not in the interests of most farmers, and certainly not in the interests of achieving climate goals, but the IFA will never move away from that so long as their pocketbook demands more production.
It is not the interests of farmers that are prioritised, but those of the exporters who make gigantic profits and engage in stock buybacks to enrich shareholders. Meanwhile the average family farm makes 70% of its income from government subsidies but the IFA wants to convince us it's the exports that they depend on.
True. The only capitalist the average Irish person loves being rid by is the Irish farmers is seems.
It is a minuscule amount of beef in the grand scheme of things. In fact I doubt we will be seeing it on supermarket shelves, 99,000 tonnes across the entire continent would get consumed by Brazilian restaurants and the 1.8 million Brazilians living in the EU alone.
Sure let's increase your personal taxes by 1% and then let us know how you feel. Sure it's only 1%, hardly anything, it'll barely have an effect on you
Except this is analogous to an increase in taxes of 1%. It is a decrease in tariffs (less than 8%) on 1.5% of production. A fraction of a fraction in terms of impact.
This is Ireland do we have equivalents for the rest of Europe I would've assumed its the same?
Seems like beef is only a tiny part of this. Are we letting farmers dictate our economy again despite being massively subsidised and catered to already?
Yes
Why are we voting no?
Good, its crazy to ask us to reduce our CO2 under the threat of massive fines, whilst on the other hand incentivizing Brazilian farmers to cut down more Rain Forest to use for grazing land to produce beef.
Irish farmers currently import feed from South America: https://www.agriland.ie/farming-news/ireland-imported-740000t-of-animal-feed-from-mercosur-in-2023/
Guess where they make space to grow that?
We also export 90% of our beef to countries that sell it for less than we can buy it for ourselves.
Instead of importing frankenbeef from South American slash and burn ranches, maybe we could limit some of our exports to a level that both allows us to feed our animals with the feed we can produce and sell it at a price that Irish households can afford.
You can buy Irish beef in France, Germany and Switzerland for less per kg than you can buy it here so someone’s fucking us over domestically.
This is such a bad gotcha ya we should work to reduce this.
Surely the answer isn't to add to the problem but to tackle the feed issue
Reality is if you eat beef you are cutting down the rain forest. They are either grazing cattle on it or growing feed on it. There is no moral high ground here.
We already import animal feed from the Brazilian. We're literally already incentivising it.
And we have such low levels of forestry ourselves because of all the agriculture.
I'm opposed to the deal, but we cant pretend we're opposed to protect the environment.
Or maybe, European citizens, should cut down their beef consumption. This is basic supply and demand. Farmers will supply what the population demand.
Stop eating beef.
The independents put their foot down as well as the min for ag
Good. Safe food has to be a red line.
I don't know enough about the deal to comment, other than noting a lobby rather than a detailed objective analysis almost certainly won the day.
It's moot anyway as the deal will pass
The deal was done pretty much exclusively to benefit German car manufacturing.
There is no benefit to Ireland if this deal passes.
That simply is not true, it opens a new market of 280 million people to Ireland. Given we are an export led economy this would be beneficial.
What do we export to the Mercouser countries?
We have very little domestic manufacturing which isn't part of a MNC which already avoids the tariffs.
One of our main exports, which could benefit, is agricultural machinery, which isn't included in the deal. We have been shafted.
Ireland is a major producer of pharmaceutical goods which the Mercosur deal allows to be exported to an entire continent. This will create jobs in Ireland that dont currently exist.
Meh we are a small country we are not at all limited by how big of a market we're open to because the European market is so much bigger than just us
Doesn't Brazil bulldoze acres of rainforest to graze cattle? Surely this deal by extension facilitates and incentivises the continuation of that.
Sadly it looks like we will be out numbered in Europe
Thank god. Farmers holding back the rest of society for long enough. At a time when beef prices in ireland have never been hogher and farmers i know will happily admit the demand is getting them a nice wage on top of all the welfare rhe EU already gives them.
Surprised they took a break from pouring nitrates into our rivers amd lakes but I guess theyll never miss an opportunity to play the victim.
Why is it bad for farmers to earn a nice wage but when something threatens the nice wages of people working in US tech or pharma companies we need to kiss Trump's feet to protect them?
This will disproportionately affect Ireland and our export economy. It’s that simple.
Have you considered tht pharmaceuticals are a far more important revenue generator in the Irish export economy and is 5 times larger than that of the agricultural exports?
We will literally make more money from Mercosur and everyone is getting hung up because Irish farmers superior beef will have to compete for 1.5% of the European Market with inferior Brazil beef. The 98.5% of the beef market remains protected.
Have you considered that pharma companies are US based and there has already been threats to pull them out of here and move them back to America. Look what Trump is doing, we’re at their mercy if we take your approach
Exactly that, look at what he is doing. Not what he is saying.
The reality is Trump says a lot. Pharmaceutical plants aren't something you can just dismantle and ship to the US during what remains of his term in office, and especially not in the time that (hopefully) will coincide when Republican holding the US Congress.
The other person's approach is that we remove trade barriers between Europe and most of South America. That lessens our dependence on the US.
Agriculture represents 1% of Irish GDP, with beef being some fraction of that. We should not be holding back the rest of the economy to shield that sector from a tiny bit of competition.
Investment has slowed down in pharma but thats expansion. Our main plants are going nowhere. I work in the industry and can tell you Trump hasn't a clue. The cost, time and resources required to move a plant means he'll be long gone before its even half possible
Have I considered pharmaceuticals? No. Why not? Because that’s not what’s being discussed. Disingenuous.
I point out that we stand to gain more than we lose because pharma is far more important to the economy and actually doesnt need subsidies and you want to pretend like Mercosur is a purely a beef trade deal.
Trade deals are give and take. You cant expect for us to gain improved access to their markets and not gove them anything in return. We're not even giving them 1.5% of our beef market. We're allowing them to compete for that sliver and Irish farmers seem to think they make the best product on the planet do why are we even worrying?
Not true. First. Farmers get paid more free money.
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2026/01/06/eu-offers-extra-funds-to-quell-farmer-anger-over-mercosur-trade-deal_6749146_4.html
Secondly:
https://policy.trade.ec.europa.eu/eu-trade-relationships-country-and-region/countries-and-regions/mercosur/eu-mercosur-agreement/factsheet-eu-mercosur-partnership-agreement-ireland_en
"We're too dependent on trade with the evil US!".
Ok, how about trade deals with Canada and South America?
"No!"
And the sad thing is, there are plenty of well intentioned people here that are missing the forest for the trees. It’s the same problematic far right voters have when they focus excessively on migration, ignoring bigger issues.
It’s quite clear this deal goes way beyond beef and has the potential to be a win-win for all parts. Going full on against it just because of small concerns against it is like, I don’t know, requesting a large judicial review for a metro project because it will cause some disruption during construction in front of your house?
Yeah. There's big picture stuff here which isn't getting enough attention.
yes, our pharma industry will benefit massively from the removal of the current 14% tariffs and the ability to export more to a new continent. Absolutely no one is talking about this. Its a huge trade deal that has been 25 years in the making yet if you read the Irish media you would think it is only about beef.
Ireland is definitely not one of the countries saying that, very much the opposite
We are saying that:
https://enterprise.gov.ie/en/news-and-events/department-news/2025/august/20250825.html
The EU is going in a very weird direction lately.
"The European Commission's own audit in 2024 confirmed that Brazil cannot guarantee hormone-free beef, yet under Mercosur, exporters can self-certify."
Well that just makes a farce of the entire "oh our food standards are the highest in the world".
Couple this with the CSAM/Chat control "fuck your privacy" attitude as of late, the EU is giving the anti-EU/far-right groups all the fuel they need.
It's very disappointing at a time when the EU could stand for something as the USA self-destructs.
Ok, people do not understand this at all. Why are we saying no to Brazilian beef? The same reason we say no to American beef. They use growth hormones to make cattle put on more weight quicker. That's illegal in the EU.
One of these hormones is melengestrol acetate, aka MGA. It is a synthetic progestin hormone that is supposed to mimic progesterone, aka the same hormone used in birth control. That will be in the meat coming from Brazil.
What do high doses of MGA do to humans? I'm glad you asked. It can obviously disrupt the menstrual cycle for women, cause serious weight gain, endema, fucks with your blood sugar, can bring on fertility issues in women and erectile dysfunction in men, cause blood clothing and it can even increase risk of heart attacks and strokes. And this is just one of the synthetic hormones they receive.
Do you really want beef on the market that can cause issues like this as the amount of MGA used on the cattle in the Americas is largely unregulated. While you may piss and moan about Irish farmers, the worst thing that goes into Irish cattle is vaccines and antibiotics when they are sick. Our farmers follow strict regulations set out by the Irish government and EU, and all meat is tested. Anything deemed unsafe for the food supply is not allowed to be sold. If the Mercosur deal comes through, you can say goodbye to the biosecurity of the food that we eat.
Níl aon rud eile agamsa a rá. Ach má theipeann air seo, beidh mise fiafheoil á ithe feasta.
This is a completely incoherent deal that exports environmental damage rather than reducing it while the EU tells countries to reduce their carbon emissions. You can see the problem when the EU have done a deal that really just cuts tariffs for large industrial machinery and cars, while the people get very little benefit. It's basically a deal for the German car industry.
The sustainability mechanisms in this deal are so weak that we would basically be voting to destroy the Amazon and Cerrado, which screws over indigenous people in those countries while encouraging carbon intensive imports so the EU can say we have reduced emissions by X. I don't know anyone that wants to eat Brazilian beef. Why not just do a deal with the US and get started on the chlorinated chicken while they are at it?
Anyone supporting this deal is either German or doesn't have their head screwed on, or possibly both.
They'll never go against their main voter base
Just virtue signalling. The Government already knows they have a majority to ram it through. We've also already secured our nitrates derogation
Pure smoke and mirrors politics
Because EU to have proximity to Mercosur instead of USA, Russia and China is a bad thing.
What happens if we are the only to vote no? Doesn’t get implemented anyway, is it unanimous?
I’d love to know how they would have voted it it were in the balance and not a done deal
Waste of time really as it's going to get voted in regardless.
No FTA is 100% perfect but perfect shouldn’t be the enemy of the good. In a time of big country politics & Chinese massive exports, EU should join with as many partners as it can to compete. EU per capita GDP is half that of the U.S. (in 2009 it was the same). EU is becoming non-competitive.
I am Brazilian and I agree with this. For many decades Brazil's meat and animal production has been plagued with growth hormones, antibiotics, pesticides, and every possible agro toxin out there. Every couple of years a new political scandal involving meat emerges, the last one they were using some kind of chemical to keep meat looking nice and red when they are about to expire and extending the dates. Please keep you and your family safe and dont buy anything from Brazil, including veggies, fruits, grains, etc.
I don't think this is good. The government already fought hard to win the right of farmers to continue poisoning waterways. Now they roll in behind farmers again on this issue, rather than on the side of friendship and free trade with the people of South America when we should all be trying to reduce USAmerican influence on our economies.
You'll be down voted but youre right. We make 5 times more from pharma exports than agricultural exports and are opening up a whole new market for our pharma industry in exchange for allowing Brazilian beef try to compete for 1.5% of the European Market.
On top of that we will literally soon be getting fined for missed carbon emission targets because our herd number is too high.
People cant see the woods from tress on Mercosur at all.
A massive deal to both continents. South America will be floaded with high quality products (dairy, cars, beef etc) with a lower import tax. Europe will make tons of money.
As for the food from Brazil, you must be aware that to sell to the European market, the producers must follow strict standards. It’s not like “whatever I produce I sell”.
You sound like South America doesn't have high quality products. Have you ever had an Argentinian steak ?
Although I’m all for diversifying trading to reduce dependency from single countries, specially considering our geographic limitations, quality and health standards must come first. Besides, even if Irish beef wasn’t enough to feed ireland, Italians have amazing quality produce too.
Brazil might be brilliant on their cuts and barbecue techniques, but the meat quality control is really poor from what brazilians living here mentioned to me at work, praising our beef for its superior quality.
I’m sure mercosur has a whole other options of good imports to offer, if this is about Germans trying to sell cars, but what goes into our bodies shouldn’t suffer in quality because of their lack of innovation.
Mad Cow Disease: Part Deux
Obviously
Is it the old voting system or this new majority bullshit?
I think there needs to be a 2/3rds majority by population to pass with at least 5 member states in favour.
Von der Leyen makes €45B pitch to win Meloni’s support for Mercosur trade deal 🙄
good
I wonder are the government voting against it, knowing their vote won't make a difference? To look strong at home, without affecting the outcome?
I will never buy non Irish non eu meat or dairy furtherest il go is Germany for meat too risky meat n dairy is very easy to get sick n die big fear almost paranoia levels n im not ashamed of it call be cist or whatever i expect extreme high standstill almost autistic levels when comes to meat especially chicken
The grip the farming lobby has on this country is crazy
Why would Europe want to add more demand to a market that's bulldozing rainforest to create more farmland?
We've already deforested 99% of our country to make way for pasture farms
Why encourage Brazil to do the same?
Be nice if we could have our own forests if some of the demand on Irish farmers is eased
good
I'm fairly sure it'll still pass hopefully.
I don't see why we care more about beef farmers which is one single sliver of 1% of our economy over manufacturing and services which make up the other 99%.
Maybe if the EU take another look at the awful fisheries restrictions they put on Ireland a couple of weeks ago Ireland could take another look at Mercosur?
I do wonder if this is internal EU politics at play, rather than genuine concern for the deal.
Wait until the big boys in Eu tell us we didn't understand what we were voting for and have us vote again. Albeit us being the government.
Why would they do that? Italy, a farmer heavy economy, will vote for it and get it over the line.
Why are they destroying local agriculture to import substandard product. In a volatile geopolitical world local food security should be a priority. We learned that the hard way during the pandemic.
Irish agriculture is propped up hand over fist with subsidies. The agreement has put out limits of imports and even further subsidies in the event of a disruption to farmers
The subsidies are there to off set the limits on production. Farmers could produce more but then food prices would get too low we might get oversupply. This is a deal to open up markets for automakers, not food quality or price
Removes tariffs, barriers and improves many Irish based products and services. Billions worth of business made easier that will likely grow much further. In return, 99,000 tonnes of beef are added to the market.
Farmers will be looked after regardless, seems like a win for Ireland and Irish business.
I would agree if that was the case but it isn't, we have quotas on production and heard count farmers want to farm, it is obvious that this isn't going to help Irish beef farmers. Free trade and open Markets are great but the EU is setup to be protectionist and this is sacraficing farmers for other industries. No wonder they are against it.