The Ulster Farmers’ Union (UFU) has said it is disappointed that the Northern Ireland Executive did not allocate additional funding for TB in the draft budget 2025/2026.
Although the UFU president, William Irvine, said the organisation welcomed the NI Executive’s proposal to “ring-fence” the agricultural support budget for future years, he also warned that “proper funding” is required to address the issue of TB in Northern Ireland.
Irvine believes that the executive understands “how important farming is to our economy, environment, and food security”.
But he also cautioned that the agricultural budget must be “protected indefinitely and linked to inflation to ensure its real-term value does not decline”.
TB
The UFU president said that TB “continues to devastate farm businesses” in Northern Ireland and without “a well-funded, science-led intervention strategy, meaningful progression in disease eradication will be severely limited”.
Irvine added: “The failure to allocate separate funding for TB control, particularly to support wildlife intervention measures, is a missed opportunity.
“Farmers cannot bear this burden alone, government support is essential.”
The UFU has also challenged how the allocation of future additional UK government agricultural funding could be impacted under what is known as the “Barnett formula”.
Irvine said: “Northern Ireland has historically received around 9% of the UK’s total agricultural funding – a reflection of our sector’s high output and importance to the national food supply chain.
“Under a population-based Barnett formula, this share would be drastically reduced to just 3%, which is utterly inadequate.
“Northern Ireland farmers produce enough food for 10 million people, five times our population, and any reduction in funding would have severe consequences for our industry and rural communities.”
He has urged the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) and the Northern Ireland Executive to “challenge this approach and fight for a fair funding model”.
“Overall, whilst the draft budget is a step in the right direction with the ring-fencing of agricultural support, the major gaps in funding for TB control must be relooked at,” Irvine said.
