{"id":300575,"date":"2026-02-16T07:55:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T07:55:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/300575\/"},"modified":"2026-02-16T07:55:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T07:55:12","slug":"cheap-imports-costly-consequences-why-ireland-must-question-mercosur-food","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/300575\/","title":{"rendered":"Cheap imports, costly consequences: why Ireland must question Mercosur food"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"A truck loaded with soybeans leaves a grain storage unit on a farm in Brazil. Photo: Getty\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/8d2a4a04-2d2e-4ea3-9604-923f4d38188c.jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_caption1 indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_secondary indo-66f0fec7_regular indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop3 indo-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">A truck loaded with soybeans leaves a grain storage unit on a farm in Brazil. Photo: Getty<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Irish consumers are constantly told that Europe has the gold standard in food safety. From farm inspections to chemical controls, from animal welfare rules to traceability systems, the EU prides itself on protecting public health.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Irish farmers, in particular, have spent decades adapting their businesses to meet these demands \u2013 often at significant financial and emotional cost.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A truck loaded with soybeans leaves a grain storage unit on a farm in Brazil. Photo: Getty Irish&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":300576,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-300575","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=300575"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300575\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/300576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}