The animal cruelty the EU-Mercosur deal will be importing to Europe

Minerva Foods is one of the leading meat producers in South America and a major supplier of pork products globally.

Despite the vast number of animals under its supervision, a report by Sinergia Animal found that Minerva continues to rely on practices that cause immense and prolonged suffering.

These include the continued use of gestation crates, painful procedures such as ear notching, teeth clipping and tail docking, as well as the routine misuse of antimicrobials.

While the company has made commitments to end some of these practices, excessively long deadlines to meet these commitments mean that most animals under its care will continue to endure severe suffering.

Far from being an isolated case, these practices reflect a wider production system across Mercosur countries — systems that may end up supplying significantly more of the meat consumed across the European Union.

It is against this backdrop that the apparent delay of the EU-Mercosur trade agreement matters.

Long presented as an economic opportunity to boost trade in cars, minerals and agricultural products — particularly meat — the deal would lower tariffs without requiring imported products to meet equivalent animal welfare standards.

Its stalling should not be read simply as a diplomatic setback. Rather, it represents a rare and necessary pause, a chance to reconsider whether expanding trade on these terms is compatible with the EU’s values, laws, and long-standing commitments. 

Without meaningful safeguards, the agreement – as it stands – risks locking the EU into a system that expands imports of meat produced under conditions that fall far below EU regulations.

Meat on the European plate

This creates a stark disconnect between what EU consumers expect from the food on their plates and the realities of how that food is produced in parts of the Mercosur region – realities I have witnessed first-hand. 

The EU has some of the highest animal welfare standards in the world, grounded in the recognition that how animals are farmed matters — to society, to the environment, and to the animals themselves.

Yet expanding imports of meat produced under far weaker rules risks pulling those standards in the wrong direction. Instead of driving global improvements, the deal would normalise production systems that rely on practices already restricted or banned within the EU. 

Take the use of gestation crates for sows.

In the EU, their use is strictly limited to the first 28 days of pregnancy, after which sows must be housed in conditions that allow them to move freely and express natural behaviours such as turning around or rooting.

In Brazil, by contrast, sows are commonly kept continuously in gestation crates — confined to spaces so small they cannot turn around, leading to chronic stress, frustration, physical injury and severe suffering.

The economic implications are equally troubling.

As highlighted by the recent protests in France, EU farmers are currently required to meet higher welfare standards, often at significant cost, yet will now be expected to compete with cheaper imports produced under far weaker regulation.

This imbalance undermines farmers who have invested in higher standards and risk creating a race to the bottom.

Hens

Similar disparities in animal welfare standards are evident in egg production, particularly in the continued use of cages for hens, which significantly lowers production costs.

In Argentina and Uruguay, 89 percent and 88 percent of eggs respectively come from hens kept in battery or enriched cages. In Brazil, the figure rises to 95 percent. By comparison, 38 percent of hens in the EU are still kept in cages — a figure already widely regarded as unacceptably high and the subject of ongoing reform efforts (Our World in Data).

Beyond animal welfare, expanding trade in meat and other animal products would inevitably increase demand for animal feed and agricultural land across Mercosur countries, intensifying pressure on vital ecosystems.

As production scales up to meet export demand, deforestation is likely to accelerate, driven by the expansion of grazing land and feed crop cultivation.

This loss of habitat pushes biodiversity closer to collapse and undermines ecosystems that play a crucial role in climate regulation.

At a time when the EU’s environmental and climate agenda is fast losing momentum — with key initiatives such as the EU Deforestation Regulation and electric vehicle mandate either delayed or watered down — entering into a trade agreement that fuels deforestation risks further stalling progress rather than restoring it. 

The EU’s long-term ambition to champion higher animal welfare, sustainable food systems and environmental protection remains widely recognised.

But ambition alone is not enough.

In the short term, policy coherence has faltered, and trade agreements like the EU-Mercosur risk locking in contradictions that make recovery harder. Trade agreements actively shape how food is produced and whose interests are prioritised, and the delay of the EU–Mercosur deal therefore represents more than a diplomatic pause.

It is an opportunity, and a responsibility, to reset the terms of engagement. If negotiations resume, they must do so with robust, enforceable rules to reduce the suffering of farmed animals built in from the outset, not treated as an afterthought.

The realities of industrial meat production in parts of the Mercosur region make clear what is at stake. Trade policy should be a tool for driving standards up globally, not dragging them down.  

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