A public consultation on future agricultural policy proposals has been launched by Northern Ireland (NI) farm minister Edwin Poots.

Open for eight weeks to midnight on 15 February 2022, industry views are sought across a number of different components of a new programme.

While there is no radical overhaul expected before 2024, outside of the EU, DAERA officials maintain there is more scope to set policies directly relevant to NI farmers and more flexibility to make changes into the future.

Current payments

The bulk of the current direct payments will initially go on a new area-based resilience measure to replace the basic payment scheme (BPS).

It will be linked to a new set of farm sustainability standards to replace the current cross compliance regime, with payments targeted at active farmers.

The Department has also proposed that up to 17% of the farm support budget will be redirected in the first year of a new policy into coupled payments for suckler cows and finished beef cattle.

Incomes in the beef and sheep sector in NI are highly dependent on direct payments

The DAERA document acknowledges that incomes in the beef and sheep sector in NI are highly dependent on direct payments and while there are currently no plans to put payments on to ewes, it “could be reconsidered at a future date”.

Moving beyond 2024, the money targeted at the resilience measure will be reduced, as more farmers partake of agri-environment type schemes.

Innovation

Long term, it is intended that the resilience measure will be “set at a level which does not blunt innovation or productivity”.

Launching the consultation, Minister Poots said that he wanted to devise schemes that help farmers become more efficient and maximise the sustainable returns they can achieve from their assets.

“With appropriately designed policy interventions and innovation, all of this can be achieved without compromising the economic viability of the sector. If we get it right, the benefits to our rural economy can be substantial,” he said.

Read more in the NI edition of the Irish Farmers Journal.

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