Luke Ming Flanagan: Don't Force-Feed Brazilian Beef
Luke Ming Flanagan, MEP, criticised trade deals that allow lower-quality imports and urged honest promotion of European food. He argued this week that Europe should sell its sustainable food on its merits and avoid undermining farmers by bringing in products such as Brazilian beef.
Main argument
Luke Ming Flanagan praised the work on the draft report but said promotion must be honest. He argued Europe’s unique selling point is its often more sustainable food systems and that money spent promoting European food should reflect that reality.
Trade contradiction
Flanagan warned of a contradictory message from policymakers: signing deals that treat imports as equivalent while telling consumers to buy European food as a superior product. He said you cannot claim our food is unique and better while simultaneously allowing imports of markedly lower quality.
Consequences for farmers and consumers
The MEP said the best way to support farmers is to eat European food ourselves and not end up with Brazilian beef on plates, noting he has never been asked by anyone in Ireland where to get Brazilian beef. He called for honest promotion that does not undermine the very farmers it seeks to support.
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I listened to the repertoire and listened to all the speakers and well done on all the work that you put into this draft report and I think it is very very important to promote our food and ultimately what we're trying to do is to get people to buy European food and in order to do that and no matter what product you're trying to sell you'd like to have a unique selling point and I would say the unique selling point in Europe is that in many cases our food systems are more sustainable than what the alternative would be more environmentally friendly and of course it could be better but that we do have a unique product here and it's very important to spend money on that but at the same time we have a situation whereby we are signing up to deals where we are told and in effect the world is told don't worry about what we're importing because it is of the same quality and sure if it's of the same quality how can you argue it's the same quality and then tell people we should buy European food because well somehow it's unique and it's better quality you can't really have the two things at once so for me I'd say it again it's important to promote European food but the best way to promote farmers and to promote European food is for us to eat it ourselves and not for people to end up with Brazilian beef on their plate because I have never ever had anyone come up to me in Ireland and say where can I get some Brazilian beef but unfortunately we have politicians that seem to want to force feed it to them while at the same time saying we don't want this to ever happen so for me the best promotion is to be honest that our food is actually the best and not contradict it then by bringing in crap that is nowhere near as good.
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