A Co. Armagh farmer believes that reform proposals in farm support for Northern Ireland will destroy the entire fabric of rural areas.
Last month, NI agriculture minister, Edwin Poots, proposed a radical shake up of the subsidies that will be available to agriculture in Northern Ireland beyond 2023.
This includes a provision to raise the minimum area eligibility threshold for a new ‘safety net’ payment up to 10ha. Currently, farmers in Northern Ireland are eligible to receive the basic payment if they own or lease a minimum of 3ha.
Terry Hearty farms near Crossmaglen in Co. Armagh. He believes that the implementation of the enhanced area threshold will force 75% of his neighbouring farmers off the land.
“This specific proposal, if implemented, sounds the death knell for small farmers,” he told Agriland.
“The vast majority of the farmers in my area work less than 20ac. If they are not eligible for the new payments, they will also be excluded from the new livestock and other payments that are being proposed.
“Under those circumstances they will have no option but to give farming up altogether," he added.
Other challenges from reform proposals
But according to Hearty, the loss of subsidy opens the door to a host of other problems that will then confront small farms.
He explained: “The loss of farm business numbers will follow. In turn this will mean that small farmers will not be allowed to build homes for their children on their own land.
“The only option then will be for farmers’ children to head to cities like Belfast. Getting accommodation in Crossmaglen is not an option as the housing lists are just so long.”
Hearty is astonished that Poots’ proposal has received so little attention up to this point.
“If this increase in the area threshold is allowed to go ahead, it will rip the heart out of rural Ireland," he stated.
“Such an increase will remove one of the few safety nets that smallholding farmers have and leave thousands of us open to bankruptcy.”
Farmer wellbeing
According to Hearty, the mental health of farmers will also be affected.
“For many smallholdings farmers, having a bit of land and a few cattle isn't about making money, it's as much a cultural and social enterprise as an economic one,” he explained.
“Moving the cattle, drawing in silage, and purchasing meal gives often isolated rural farmers a sense of purpose.
"It keeps the mind and the body active; it's something to talk about in the pubs; it's a chance to socialise at the mart. To take this away is to condemn them to isolation, depression and worse.
"I'm astonished that Minister Poots has concocted such a barefaced plan to run the small farmers out of rural Ireland and appalled that the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs, or DAERA, is allowing him to do it.”
The consultation is on the DAERA website and closes on Tuesday, February 15, 2022.
