During the farmers' protest in Strasbourg, ahead of the European Parliament's vote on the Mercosur trade deal, police used tear gas against demonstrators seeking an appeal to block the agreement.

Officers reportedly were forced to throw stun grenades at the protesters as they tried to enter the parliament building.

"Farmers are trying to get into the European Parliament. The police used tear gas," wrote MEP Maciej W?sik of the Law and Justice party (PiS) on social media.

Remix News reported yesterday that around 4,000 farmers from across the European Union, including Italy, Belgium, and Germany, were expected to descend on Strasbourg, with French farmers forming the majority.

Actual numbers were cited as high as 4,500, with the protesters are demanding that the Mercosur trade agreement signed by Ursula von der Leyen be blocked.

"Even if some countries support Mercosur, within those countries there are MEPs who have serious doubts, and it could come down to just a few votes, so we need to keep up the pressure,"  said Hervé Lapie, secretary general of the National Federation of Farmers' Unions (FNSEA).

The European Parliament is scheduled to vote on a possible appeal to the European Court of Justice, but this seems unlikely. The parliament's main political group, the EPP (which includes the Civic Coalition and the Polish People's Party), has announced that it will not support such a motion, paving the way for an easy ratification vote today.

The Mercosur agreement is intended to boost EU exports of cars, machinery, wines and spirits to Latin America, while facilitating imports into Europe of South American beef, sugar, rice, honey and soybeans. Farmers' organizations, however, warn that the deal will destabilize European agriculture by exposing it to cheaper imports that do not necessarily comply with EU production standards, citing what they describe as insufficient controls.

The Mercosur deal has also revealed that the EU's concerns about climate change are flimsy at best. The deal will see cheap and dangerous agricultural goods pour into Europe from halfway across the world. The EU's "farm-to-table" programs also appear to have been blown up by the new deal. Of course, there is nothing about "eat local" when food is being shipped from the other side of the world.

Brazil alone allows the use of as many as 3,669 pesticides and has cleared away millions of acres of rainforest to create monoculture mega farms. The destruction of the rain forest will only accelerate with this new deal.