PREPARE over the coming weeks to learn a lot more about South America and in particular the Mercosur countries negotiating a new trade deal with Europe.

This has been going on, as all these negotiations do, for a considerable time, but both sides are about to show their hands by making an offer. This has, quite rightly, set alarm bells ringing in agriculture in Europe, which was always set to pay the price for giving the wider eurozone economy better market access to South America.

This issue has rocketed up the agenda over the past week, mainly because the EU is about to make that offer. Central to that will be a new import quota of tariff-free beef for the Mercosur countries, with a figure of 78,000 tonnes suggested.

The threat that represents can be gauged from the agricultural superpowers that make up Mercosur. They include Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay - all with big beef industries and a track record for exporting to Europe. At the moment they have the additional bonus of weak national currencies that make their exports even more competitive.

In the scale of things, 78,000 tonnes of beef may not sound a lot. But like New Zealand, with its lamb quota, it is a safe bet the South Americans would maximise the export of high value cuts. There are question marks over parts of their beef industries, but they can produce high quality, grass fed beef from traditional British breeds to target the top end of the European market. That can only be at a cost to those, including Scotch beef, already in that lucrative part of the market.

While the focus is on beef there is also a threat to poultry and pigmeat from countries with access to cheap grain, cheap labour and with lower environmental and social welfare standards. It is easy to see potential gains for the wider European economy, although South America is not the growth powerhouse it was when these negotiations began.

However apart from getting some top end food and drink products into South America, it is hard to see this deal as anything but a lose / lose for European agriculture.

The offers about to be made are just that, and a final deal is still some time away. However now is when the pressure needs to be put on the European Commission by the agricultural industry, and this is happening. Led by France and Ireland, this week's farm council saw growing support from member states for the Commission to recognise the need to protect 'sensitive' agricultural products.

This was supported, with varying degrees of enthusiasm, by 20 out of 28 member states. A significant number, including the UK and Germany, adopted a neutral stance. Predictably support for the deal came from countries like Spain and Portugal that have long-standing trading relationships with South America. This is the sort of pressure needed to put a shot across the bows of a European Commission with a track record of being over-influenced in trade deals by industrial prospects that fail to materialise.

This potential deal needs to be delayed at least until the autumn. A report is due in September for the farm commissioner, Phil Hogan, on the potential impact on agriculture of all the trade deals in the offing, including Mercosur and TTIP with the United States. Farmers and farm ministers need to be able to study this in detail before signing on any dotted line.

It is a reasonable bet that this report will confirm the price agriculture will pay. The Commission then would have two options. These are to back away from the deal or demand less access to Europe on a tariff-free basis for agricultural products. That seems unlikely, since the countries involved want to sell food to a European market of 500 million people.

The alternative would be protection in the form of compensation to European beef producers. This has already been hinted at by the Commission but would be far from satisfactory. It would be short term and uncertain, while the problem of South American access is long term and very certain.

Proof is that the New Zealand lamb quota is still causing damage more than 40 years after it was agreed. An alternative would be a more gradual phasing in of tariff-free beef. The farming industry needs to demand that this is the approach Brussels adopts, even if it delays ratification of the Mercosur deal.