Dear editor, with the EU under attack from all sides, European farmers are yet again being used as cannon fodder as the much debated Mercosur deal is about to be signed into reality. 

It's incredibly ironic that European policy over the last 10 years has driven the need for this controversial deal to become reality.

Stringent and costly environmental policies and bureaucracy overkill has seen a huge swathe of European manufacturing swing towards China and Asia, where lax regulations have given them a huge competitive edge.

Along with a can-do attitude, this superpower can literally supply Europe with its every need, putting further pressure on surviving business.

The policy of turning a blind eye to the sustainable production standards of our imports whilst regulating our own producers out of business, is the core of our problems. 

With tsunamis threatening from all sides in the form of war, tariffs, floods of cheap imported Chinese products, ESP electric cars and solar panels, there is a panic to secure new markets for our remaining business.

This is the driving force behind the push to sign the Mercosur deal. So, after years of jumping every hurdle put in front of them and adapting to change that would have caused a revolution in most other sectors of the community, European farmers will have their markets undermined yet again with genetically modified grain and beef with little or no traceability.

This is thereby rewarding climate laggards for decimating huge swathes of the Amazon and encouraging environmentally compliant EU citizens to feast on the lungs of the planet.

You couldn't make it up, then again we don't have to.  It's reality in our crazy world!

From Ned Ward, Navan, Co. Meath