The destruction of tropical forests in Brazil has had its day as an argument against agriculture and agricultural trade.
Agricultural engineer Ingo Melchers, who worked in Brazil for a long time, assesses the EU-Mercosur Agreement from an agronomic and Brazilian perspective.
The EU’s trade agreement with MERCOSUR, which was signed by Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in Montevideo on December 6, 2024 after 25 years of negotiations, is causing a stir. The President of the German Farmers’ Association, Joachim Rukwied, is against it. Günter Felßner, the Bavarian farmers’ president nominated by the CSU for the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, is against it. The Left and the AfD are against it, as are many civil society and church organizations and Greenpeace. For Anna Cavazzini, Member of the European Parliament for the Greens, this is a matter of humanity: “The Amazon rainforest is one of the relevant tipping points for the global climate and its preservation is extremely important for humanity. The current high deforestation rates must not be increased by the EU-Mercosur agreement.”
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Cover picture: President of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, during the summit meeting of the presidents of the MERCOSUR contracting states and associated states on 06.12.2024 in the MERCOSUR building in Montevideo, Uruguay; Photo: Ricardo Stuckert / PR; URL: https://flic.kr/p/2qyknAD (last accessed on 31.12.2024)
