Irish farmers will protest across the country on Thursday (1 February) at 7 pm in a show of solidarity with other EU member states’ farmers and amid struggles of their own.
Tractors have taken to the streets of many European towns and cities over the last month, culminating in massive protests in Brussels on Thursday as EU leaders met for a crucial summit.
Agricultural workers across Europe have a long litany of complaints, including EU environmental regulations, subsidies, taxes, and the pending EU- Mercosur agreement.
Irish farmers are also unhappy with the situation for their sector, Cathal MacCarthy, media director for the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association, told Euractiv.
“There’s a general dissatisfaction with the level of environmental regulation that is being heaped on farmers, the low margins, and (the) resulting low income the farmers have been suffering from for a very long time now.”
While dairy farmers are in the midst of calving season and may not turn out in as large numbers as other groups of Irish farmers, MacCarthy said the sentiment will be there.
“There will be a great deal of sympathy and solidarity with the aim and ambitions of the protests both in Ireland and on the Continent,” he said.
The Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) announced a decision by their National Council that protests would take place in every county on Thursday between 7 pm and 9 pm.
IFA President Francie Gorman said Irish farmers are just as frustrated by what is happening as farmers in other countries.
“They feel they are being regulated out of business by Brussels bureaucrats and Department of Agriculture officials who are far removed from the reality of day-to-day farming,” Gorman said on Wednesday, ahead of the action.
United against regulations, costs
The concerns of the Irish beef and dairy farmers echo the concerns of other European farmers who have been
protesting for weeks.
MacCarthy said Irish beef and dairy farmers also believe they are not being compensated fairly for the agrifood products they cultivate, given the increased costs involved in production as a result of environmental regulations.
“We need senior politicians to face consumers and say, ‘Lads, listen, the cost of producing this food is X, that has to be paid, and the margin that allows farmers to live (has to be paid), but we can’t just be dependent on what the supermarket feels like charging their customers,’” he said.
“We can either continue to have cheap food, or we can have environmentally sustainable food, but we can’t have both,” MacCarthy added.
MacCarthy is also concerned that forcing further environmental regulations on farmers will cause Irish beef and dairy farmers to relocate their production to countries with fewer environmental regulations and less sustainable production.
Mad over Mercosur
Another point of contention is the EU’s agreement with
Mercosur member countries in South America, which would lower trade barriers between the blocs.
“The idea that the EU would heap environmental regulations on its own farmers but conclude an agreement with South American countries to export nearly 100,000 tonnes of beef tariff-free … is unacceptable and absurd,” MacCarthy said.
MacCarthy said that importing beef from other countries will “be the end of indigenous EU production of beef.”
French farmers share
similar sentiments, leading to a lack of French governmental support for Mercosur.
Last February, French President Emmanuel Macron said he would reject a Mercosur deal if it did not require Mercosur farmers to be subject to similar environmental regulations as EU farmers.
The
FT reported Macron saying he could not “ask our farmers, our industrialists in France but also everywhere in Europe to make efforts to apply new rules to decarbonise and then say all of a sudden, ‘I’m removing all the tariffs to allow products to enter which do not apply these rules’.”
Pro-Mercosur Germany
proposed splitting the deal into sections, leaving more unpopular facets out, as it looks to increase its exports of automotives and machines. France was opposed to this.
www.euractiv.com
