A climate change disaster: Von der Leyen says Mercosur free trade deal will activate on May 1 despite concerns over pesticides, rain forest destruction, and EU food security

According to the European Commission, the trade agreement between the European Union and the South American bloc Mercosur will be provisionally applied from May 1, and member states have been informed. The announcement comes, even though the full approval process has not yet been completed.

EU countries adopted the agreement in early January, with opposition from countries including Poland and France. On Jan. 17, the agreement was signed in Asuncion, Paraguay, despite ongoing mass protests in Europe. EU commission head Ursula von der Leyen has been heavily criticized for betraying farmer and consumer interests across the bloc, especially when she headed to Australia for a climate-destroying trade deal to import beef in February, right after vowing to push through Mercosur.

26-year-old French organic farmer, Anaïs Foulquier, says that the EU’s new Mercosur free trade deal with South America will destroy her farm.

“We are young organic farmers. We rear our own goats, dairy cows and laying hens. We respect everything, the standards, the… pic.twitter.com/UyJjN0cWY8

— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) January 20, 2026

The issue of imported beef took center stage earlier this year when it was discovered that Brussels was pushing for the Mercosur deal, including importing beef, despite a report from the Dutch Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority that it had detected Brazilian beef contaminated with estradiol, a growth hormone used to stimulate estrus in cattle that is banned in the European Union.

Last June, the French Federation of Agricultural Unions (FNSEA) has once again called on President Macron to take action to create a minority in the EU to block the ratification of the Mercosur Agreement by the Council of the European Union. Macron has called Brussels’ pushing of the deal, especially when it originally announced it would be provisionally enforced in February, a “bad surprise.” 

Farmers took to the streets last summer to protest the deal, to no avail. “Spanish farmers will lose €1 billion this year,” Javier Fatas, leader of the farmers’ union COAG from the Aragon region in northeastern Spain, had said at the time. Polish farmer rep Krzysztof Olejnik called the provisions of the EU-Mercosur Agreement a “spit in the face” of farmers. And the French Federation of Agricultural Unions (FNSEA) told press that Mercosur would be “devastating for the beef, poultry and sugar industries and compromise the EU’s ambitions in terms of food sovereignty.” 

Back in 2022, Dutch farmers protested strict new regulations being imposed on them to meet EU environmental standards — standards that farmers say the EU commission is now turning a blind eye to for Mercosur imports.

The timing of the EC’s announcement of the May 1 enforcement is odd, as the agreement still needs to be voted on by the European Parliament. The European Parliament, however, has referred the case to the Court of Justice of the EU, which is assessing issues surrounding unfair competition, environmental concerns, and EU food safety standards.

Rainforest destruction

Studies and government analyses cited by critics estimate that the agreement could increase deforestation in the Mercosur region by at least 5 percent per year over a period of six years. One study suggested up to 700,000 hectares of forests could be destroyed in the first year alone due to increased beef exports, according to a Veblen Institute study.

According to Earth.org. “Globally, 80 percent of the land cleared for cattle grazing and animal feed monocultures is used for meat production. In Brazil, the world’s largest beef exporter, cattle farming is the single largest driver of Amazonian deforestation and conversion of native vegetation to areas of pasture. Here, the rate of deforestation increased by 60 percent between 2016 and 2020, with approximately 580,000 hectares (5,800 square kilometers) of forest cut down in one year to create pastures.”

Pesticides

There is big business at stake for Europe, after all. Germany accounts for 16 percent of the sales of pesticides to Mercosur, while France accounts for 37 percent, according to Greenpeace. Brazil is the largest consumer of pesticides in the entire world, and much of that pesticide use is being deployed on former rainforest, which has been burned and clear-cut to make room for massive monoculture crops and cattle farming. Greenpeace further writes:

“Brazil‘s agriculture model is based mainly on large-scale monoculture systems producing agriculture commodities. This agriculture business model is dominated by large corporations and is closely linked to the destruction of natural ecosystems such as forests. It requires large amounts of natural resources, emits greenhouse gases and is especially dependent on the use of pesticides that pose great risks to humans and the nature.According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) 20, around 380,000 tonnes of toxic substances ended up on Brazil‘s farmland in 2017 (around 634,000 square kilometers at that time 21). To meet the high demand for pesticides, Brazil imports large quantities of pesticide active ingredients, which are subsequently further processed in the country.”

Pesticides have been linked to a threat to human health, environmental destruction, and the ongoing eradication of insect populations.

The deal would create one of the world’s largest free trade zones, yet it offers little to address the “boomerang pesticides” that are banned in the EU but used in Mercosur states. The lack of enforceable safeguards means that while the Greens talk about “EU standards,” they are implicitly backing a system where environmental protections are compromised for market access.

After all, the deal is labeled the “cows-for-cars” trade deal for a reason. German companies, including automobile manufacturers and chemical companies, want access to South America. The Mercosur agreement will tighten the screws on organic farmers, who will find it even harder to compete against cheap and substandard South American food.

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