A number of strategic challenges currently facing agriculture in Northern Ireland will be actively addressed during 2025.
This is the strongly held view of Ulster Farmers’ Union (UFU) deputy president, John McLenaghan.
“Planning hold ups, specifically linked to the ammonia issue, have held up planning applications across agriculture for the past number of years, but there are signs that this log jam could start to be eased over the coming months.
“New technologies are coming on stream to address the numerous environmental issues that impact on agriculture as a whole.
“But government must recognise this will be a gradual process. Farmers must be allowed to invest in the future of their businesses. If this does not happen, then the farming sector will stagnate,” he said.
Strategic challenges
The coming months will see the publication of Northern Ireland’s first Climate Action Plan (CAP), a new nitrates plan and further progress made in the context of production agriculture addressing the carbon challenge.
“Farmers are already addressing the challenge of the environment manner. The fast-growing uptake of low emission slurry spreading systems is a case in point,” McLenaghan added.
The union’s deputy president is also hopeful of progress being made, where the eradication of bovine tuberculosis (bTB) is concerned.
The appointment of a new chief veterinary officer is a “very helpful step in this regard”, he said.
“What farming does has never been more important for society as a whole. The challenge ahead is one of maintaining food output while maintaining the highest environmental standards.
“Food security is a critically important issue, both in a UK and international context.
“Making this happen will require farmers being allowed to invest for the future. We also need to invest in our animal health standards,” the UFU president continued.
The fundamental benchmark set by the UFU presidential team from a planning perspective is that of farmers being allowed to replace a like-for-like building.
This would be on the basis of new technologies allowing improved environmental, animal welfare and safety standards to be achieved.
“Farmers will always want to invest in the future of their businesses. Given the current state of the world’s food commodity markets, there is a window of opportunity to allow this happen.
“But the current planning hold ups must be addressed before any of this can happen,” McLenaghan stressed.
