Sheep farmers have been neglected in the recently published agricultural reform proposals for Northern Ireland (NI), according to Sinn Féin MLA, Declan McAleer.
He said that sheep farms, particularly those in areas of natural constraint, will be severely impacted if the north’s agriculture minister, Edwin Poots, does not change his future agriculture policy proposals.
"When the single farm payment system came in, sheep farmers in the less favoured areas, historically, had entitlement values below the regional average," McAleer said.
"They laboured with this for years. However, in 2015, the then agriculture minister, Michelle O'Neill, introduced a seven-year transition towards a flat rate per entitlement. This was good news for sheep farmers. But when Minister Poots came into office in 2020, he halted this transition.
“This decision, in tandem with that of scrapping the area of natural constraint hill farm payment, has removed millions each year from small farmers.”
McAleer argues that latest farm reform proposals, espoused by Minister Edwin Poots, continue this neglect by failing to reintroduce the area of natural constraint payment and not including any plans to introduce a sheep support scheme.
"This is grossly unfair because under the proposals all farmers, including sheep farmers, will have their new single farm payment modulated by up to 17%. But none of this is earmarked for a sheep support scheme.
"This also places our farmers at a serious competitive disadvantage to farmers in the south, which has the area of natural constraint payment plus a sheep welfare scheme.
"As well as the minister’s plans to remove almost 5,000 farms from the new single farm payment scheme, as they are under 25ac in size, his latest proposals could inflict even more serious and long lasting damage on our hill farms and rural communities," McAleer said.
