Opinion

Patrick Murphy: Brazilian beef deal with EU has serious implications for Irish farming

Patrick Murphy

Patrick Murphy

Patrick Murphy is an Irish News columnist and former director of Belfast Institute for Further and Higher Education.

The EU has just agreed to import 99,000 tonnes of beef annually from four South American countries, including Brazil
The EU has just agreed to import 99,000 tonnes of beef annually from four South American countries, including Brazil The EU has just agreed to import 99,000 tonnes of beef annually from four South American countries, including Brazil

There is a theory that if a butterfly flaps its wings in the Amazon rainforest, it can cause a tornado in Texas.

You may well think that whoever invented it might need to get out more, but the idea behind what is known as the chaos theory is that small causes can have huge consequences.

You will have your own view on its usefulness, but I think that the Irish version of it (which I have just invented) is hard to argue against.

It states that if the Amazon rainforest continues to be replaced by cattle ranches and the butterflies have nowhere to flap their wings, Irish politics and society will be altered forever. This is not just for environmental reasons, but because the EU has just agreed to import 99,000 tonnes of beef annually from four South American countries, including Brazil.

That will wipe out much of the Irish beef farming industry, change the nature of rural society and undermine a significant part of Fine Gael's electoral base. How ironic that the EU, which Leo Varadkar has so vigorously supported, may now end his political career. The chaos theory is about to be tested in the Dáil.

Among its objectives, the deal aims to boost German car-makers, such as BMW, Mercedes and their subsidiaries, by giving them access to a South American market of 260 million people. In return, the EU agreed to allow 99,000 tonnes of beef and 100,000 tonnes of chicken annually into Europe.

But in the EU, beef supply marginally exceeds demand. After Brexit, supply will rise to 116 per cent of its needs. Additional cheap beef from Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay will leave the 100,000 Irish families who rely on beef for some element of their income facing a bleak economic future.

Leo Varadkar concedes that Ireland alone cannot block the deal and has not ruled out backing the plan. In a rare and welcome intervention, the new Bishop of Cork and Ross said he was "very concerned" about the livelihood of beef farmers following the deal.

What makes it worse for Leo is that the EU Agriculture Commissioner who brokered the deal is Phil Hogan. He is the former Fine Gael minister, who tried and failed to introduce water charges in Ireland, in response to the EU's demand for greater austerity following the country's economic collapse.

His response to the farming outcry against the deal was to ask if farmers had read it. Some say that Big Phil pushed the deal through in the hope of getting the new post of EU Trade Commissioner, but will Leo Varadkar continue to back him?

By encouraging further destruction of the Amazon rainforest, the deal will accelerate climate change, just six weeks after Fine Gael published its plans for tackling the problem.

The forest, which is disappearing at the rate of an area equivalent to a hurling pitch every hour, is being replaced by huge cattle ranches, owned mainly by AgroSB.

It supplies cattle to JBS, one of the world's biggest meat-packing companies, which received $62 million in bail-outs from the Trump administration last year.

The US money may be related to Trump's support for Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, a defender of torture who shares Trump's views on climate change, women, civil liberties and ethnic minorities.

All of which leaves rural Ireland facing the prospect of ghost farms to match its urban ghost housing estates. Although it will take two years to implement the deal, its impending arrival may do for Fine Gael what Ireland's economic collapse did for Fianna Fáil.

It is not clear where the Fine Gael votes will go. But the decline in Amazonian butterflies will change politics and society in Ireland in a way that we cannot yet measure. All we know is that EU policy looks set to trigger additional political and social chaos in post-Brexit Ireland.