In February, William Taylor and Sean McAuley (below) from Farmers For Action (Northern Ireland) – on behalf of Northern Ireland Farm Groups – met Tom Elliott MLA to discuss the current progress of the Northern Ireland Farm Welfare Bill in Stormont.
The Bill was discussed in detail by the previous Agriculture Committee in 2021 whereby they scrutinised the Bill and asked questions including those from Stormont’s RaISE Dept (Research and Information Service Stormont), all of which were answered by NI Farm Groups legal representatives
FFA steering committee members Sean McAuley(left), Eric Lindsay and William Taylor (right) FFA NI co-ordinator meeting HSENI to discuss agriculture’s serious accident statistics.
Sean McAuley said that Tom Elliott, MLA for Fermanagh and South Tyrone. has taken a great interest in the Bill and its detail and how it would work in practice and asked many questions all of which were answered successfully. Tom went on to clarify how the Bill should progress from here forward and was extremely helpful in detail.
The Northern Ireland Farm Welfare Bill, if enacted, would return to farmers a minimum of the cost of production inflation linked plus a margin at the farmgate for all Northern Ireland produce. It also has a climate change supporting section.
Three of Northern Ireland’s new Ministers have been asked for meetings and the first to reply was the Minister for Agriculture Andrew Muir MLA (below). FFA, on behalf of NI Farm Groups, will call for his support for the Northern Ireland Farm Welfare Bill.
William Taylor FFA stated that “The current farm gate prices being paid virtually across everything produced on farm in Northern Ireland have long since been unsustainable and recent high inflation has brought this to a head. We are seeing farmers young and old leaving the industry at a rate of knots in Southern Ireland, UK and mainland Europe, all evidenced by the current farmer unrest you see on your television screens.
“The Minister will need to be strong and determined to help process the Bill through Stormont in order to have Northern Ireland family farmers properly paid for their produce, which in turn would create thousands of jobs in Northern Ireland, help many farmers to pay their bills and have money in the bank to deal with all that accelerated climate change is throwing at them. It is planned that the Bill, if enacted, should be an example and help farm gate prices across these islands and further afield.”
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A copy of the Northern Ireland Farm Welfare Bill may be sent by email to any reader who would like to have one.
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