The EU Joint Research Centre (JRC) cumulative impact assessment of free-trade deals on EU agriculture makes sobering reading for farmers, particularly those in the beef sector.

The report, published this week, identifies a potential extra 350,000t of beef, mainly from the Mercosur trading block, flooding into what is an already saturated EU market, putting severe pressure on price.

An estimate of 16% is made, but in truth nobody knows just how far prices could fall in an oversupplied market or indeed an unbalanced market with an oversupply of steak cuts.

While Irish farmers or the wider industry won’t be particularly surprised by the numbers in the report, its real significance is that they are produced independently and scientifically by the highly respected JRC.

Now that the consequences have been spelt out, future rounds of EU trade negotiations have to assume a different emphasis when it comes to market access, particularly for beef.

It can no longer be what Minister for Agriculture Michael Creed described as the sweetener in trade negotiations – the implications for Ireland are simply too severe. In fairness, European Commissioner for Agriculture Phil Hogan recognised immediately that expectations must change with the EU’s negotiating partners.

Part of the EU’s problem is that with earlier CAP reforms, the EU effectively decommissioned its trade position unilaterally, giving it away to the rest of the world for free.

Export refunds would be a useful bargaining chip now and they need to be resurrected as part of any discussion. On top of this, almost two decades after BSE was brought under control, much of the world outside Europe remains closed to EU beef exports either by means of tariffs or non-tariff barriers.

Thanks to the foresight of Commissioner Hogan and his team, the entire Commission is now in a better-informed position with this robust report. It now falls to the commissioner to protect the interests of all EU farmers, particularly those most exposed in the beef sector.

It goes without saying that the Irish Government must make this a red-line issue when any issue on trade comes before it.

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Proposed trade deals could cut beef prices by up to 16% – EU study