TTIP poses major threat to Irish Agriculture - Ferris

The current Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiations pose threats to workers' rights, to our food safety standards, to agriculture and to our very sovereignty, in the sense that Investor State Dispute Settlement, ISDS, seems to bestow more power on corporations than sovereign governments, Sinn Féin Deputy Martin Ferris told the Dáil. In particular  Irish agriculture could be badly hit, he said.

“The Irish beef industry is export-led and needs to be so to survive,” he said. “The entry into the EU market of beef from the United States of America can only do damage to the Single Market. The American product is produced to standards far less strict than the European ones and the presence of hormones in the meat is a major factor. Beef from the US will be cheaper than the European product. This introduces unfair competition, which can only lead to a lowering of standards in the Union or damage to the market for home produced meat. The reputation of Irish meat is second to none and this must remain the case.”

Consumer confidence, said Deputy Ferris, is key to maintaining our market for Irish agricultural produce and any dilution of that is a serious threat to the industry, which is already threatened by lower prices, higher production costs and manipulation of the market by the big operators within it who have no regard for the maintenance of the family farm and the people whose lives depend on Irish agriculture.

“Ireland is a small country, but where a meat processing cartel is in existence, it is able to manipulate the market, control prices to suit its agenda, have access to beef and cattle data and maintain feeder lots so as to ensure it can manipulate prices,” he said. “The magic number in this regard is 30,000 animals a week. Effectively, if farmers or a farming organisation decide to hold back cattle in order to obtain higher prices, the cartel can supply cattle from its feeder lots to maintain the market in its own interest. It is predicted that our beef sector will contract by something between 1% and 3%, the equivalent of from €25 million to €45 million, as a result of TTIP.”