Farmers for Action to participate in NAP public consultation
Farmers for Action (FFA) has confirmed that it will participate in Northern Ireland’s Nutrients Action Programme (NAP) public consultation.
However, there remains deep scepticism within the organisation as to what the final outcome will be of the process.
FFA spokesperson, William Taylor commented: “The proposals remain very vague.
"We could still find ourselves facing into to the raft of measures which farmers across Northern Ireland found so unacceptable 12 months ago.
“We also need to see firm proposals that will be implemented in a timely manner.”
The NAP public consultation, which was launched a week ago on Monday, June 29, will have a 10-week duration.
After that Northern Ireland's Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (AERA) Committee will scrutinise the proposals contained within the document and the responses received.
The final outworking of the new NAP programme will then be voted on by members of the Northern Ireland Assembly.
So the question becomes: can these processes be completed before the current term of the Stormont institutions ends in March 2027?
NAP
Taylor said: “We were not invited onto the NAP Task and Finish Group set up by Minister Muir, so the views expressed in the NAP consultation document do not reflect the views of Farmers for Action.
“What we need is a new farm minister who is committed to production agriculture.
"This is not the case where the current incumbent, Andrew Muir is concerned.”
FFA is confirming that it will be represented at a planned NAP stakeholder meeting to be hosted by the Agri-Food and Biosciences’ Institute (AFBI) at its Hillsborough research farm in Co. Down on Monday, July 27.
“It concerns us greatly that a lot of NAP proposals are to be filtered in stage by stage, which means the end results may not be much different from what was originally proposed, which farmers rejected overwhelmingly," Taylor said.
"While these proposals are directed to the farming community, we note that there has been no move to impose similar restrictions on Northern Ireland Water.”
According to Taylor, FFA will be pointing out to the department just how far family farmers across Northern Ireland have improved and invested on the nutrients front.
They will also suggest surplus nutrient use can be eliminated by sending with any surplus back in empty grain ships leaving Belfast docks for Brazil, where there is a shortage of nutrients, according to the FFA.
“All of this is to fit in to a common-sense carbon footprint in relation to accelerated climate change," Taylor said.
