Can’t live with free trade

THE grain, milk and beef price rises of the past year could have been the worst ever bit of good news farmers got.

They were used over the past 11 days by world trade deal supporters to try to justify an agreement which would have left Irish farming to wither away.

A snapshot in time shows Irish farmers enjoying high prices, getting 75% of their income from EU payments which are not affected by world trade deals, plenty of off-farm employment to boost farm household income, and Brazil’s huge agri-industry weakened by cattle disease and currency fluctuations.