Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Charlie McConalogue has said that “significant and ongoing support will be required” for the agriculture sector due to challenges facing the market.
Minister McConalogue today (Monday, November 16) stressed the need for “ongoing readiness to deploy all necessary EU support measures to help farmers and the EU agriculture sector to deal with the significant market challenges presented by Covid-19 and Brexit”.
In particular, Minister McConalogue said he “reiterated Ireland’s concerns over a EU/Mercosur trade deal and its potential impacts on Irish farming”.
Speaking at today’s informal meeting of EU agriculture and fisheries ministers held via video-conference, Minister McConalogue said: “The agri-food sector is still significantly affected by the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and is also facing into the eye of the storm as the end of the Brexit transition period looms.
Significant and ongoing support will be required in order to keep supply chains operational and to prevent the collapse of a vital sector.
“Longer-term, more sustainable solutions will also be needed, for example in the area of food industry investment in market and product diversification.”
The minister said he “took the opportunity provided by the tabling of a point by Austria to reiterate Ireland’s long-standing concerns in relation to the EU-Mercosur agreement”.
He said that “economic and environmental sustainability issues remain to be addressed, and looked forward to the completion of the government-commissioned economic and sustainability impact assessment in this regard”.
He also called for the commission’s assessment of the cumulative effects of free trade agreements to be updated.
McConalogue opens door to all-Ireland beef PGI
In other news, the minister has said he would be open to the possibility of an all-Ireland protected geographic indication (PGI) for ‘Irish Grass-Fed Beef’.
However, the minster highlighted that this would only be possible if there was a grass-fed verification system in place in Northern Ireland.
In an answer to a parliamentary question from Sinn Féin TD Matt Carthy, Minister McConalogue said: “As the competent authority [over the PGI status application], my department must be satisfied…that there is a verification system in place to ensure that, if successful, the PGI is protected and that the claims made in a PGI application are verifiable.”