Free trade pact worries

Mercosur scandal in parliament: farmers outraged!

(Bild: stock.adobe.com)

With insults ("stupid fillet of beef"), NEOS mandatary Gerald Loacker mocks our farmers for their concerns about the free trade pact.

"Let them trade their cows and goats with each other. That's provincial thinking, and all because of a stupid fillet of beef", the NEOS politician shouted angrily into the plenary session of parliament, insulting an entire profession.

The disturbing recording of the scandal also shows his party leader Beate Meinl-Reisinger laughing with amusement. "The fact that she finds the disparagement of the achievements of our farmers and their high-quality food funny adds to the scandal and is actually a veritable eco-scandal", railed Lower Austrian Farmers' Association boss Paul Nemecek and the turquoise EU mandatary Alex Bernhuber, himself a cattle farmer.

Organic tomatoes

(Bild: Gabriele Moser)

The Farmers' Union is calling for a clear commitment to organic farming, including mandatory pesticide reduction.

(Bild: Gabriele Moser)

Farmers' association wants an apology
What's more, Loacker dismisses the justified concerns of opponents of the disastrous free trade agreement with Brazil as "small-minded and provincial thinking", the likes of which he has not even experienced in the furthest valley of his home province of Vorarlberg. Nemecek adds: "The pink politician has probably forgotten that mountain and organic farmers are fighting for their livelihood there as well as throughout Austria. On behalf of tens of thousands of farmers, I demand an immediate apology!"

Greenpeace boss Alexander Egit is also outraged: "Mercosur is planning to increase the EU import quota for cheap beef to up to 300,000 tons per year. If that doesn't threaten the existence of Europe's farmers, what does?"

Facts & figures

• Brussels wants to exempt almost all plants produced using new genetic engineering methods (direct intervention in DNA using gene scissors!) from the strict rules of EU genetic engineering legislation for agriculture.
• In future, these plants will be allowed to be cultivated and sold throughout the EU without an environmental or health safety check and without labeling on the packaging.
• National bans should not be possible. Agricultural companies are backing up this demand with unsubstantiated claims about the climate crisis and world hunger.

Massive protests
Agricultural eco-alarm also at EU level! Massive protests in recent months have led to the institutions backpedalling on environmental, social and ecological measures. "Important initiatives and legislative projects have been watered down, overturned or have never come into force," rages Global 2000 expert Birgit Reisenberger. The counter-model, cleverly thought out with our organic farmers: a thoroughly environmentally friendly, regionally value-adding agriculture!

The credo of the alliance, which has also been joined by the Chamber of Labor and the trade union: "We need to move away from the current blunt land subsidies that only benefit large farms."

Neoliberal trade pacts in our sights
Instead, organic efforts should be rewarded and the valuable services provided by organic farming must be fairly compensated. Otherwise tens of farms will have to close, they say. Together, the campaigners for a turnaround in Brussels' agricultural policy are also taking aim at the neoliberal trade pacts (Mercosur etc.).

The opinion on digitalization is clear: stop the concentration of power in the agricultural industry and data grabbing. Because every tractor in the world is 'tracked' by built-in satellite receivers in the fields.