Areas of Natural Constraint

Part of Private Members' Business – in the Northern Ireland Assembly at 3:30 pm on 3 March 2020.

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Photo of Edwin Poots Edwin Poots DUP 3:30, 3 March 2020

It is interesting that the Member raises that issue, because I know that one of his colleagues took the issue to the Equality Commission. The commission did not see any issue of equality in it, and it was thrown out. I have heard quite a number of Sinn Féin Members refer to equality in the debate, yet they did not refer to the fact that Sinn Féin had raised the matter with the Equality Commission and lost its case.

Given budgetary constraints at the time, it was not possible to source a new funding stream to continue operating the ANC scheme from Executive funds. The only alternative was to transfer money from pillar 1 — direct support payments — to create the necessary budget, and the clear message from the consultation that took place and the responses that came back was that that was not an acceptable option. I understand that Mr Catney wants to take money away from farmers in Lagan Valley and give it to farmers in the ANC area. Mr Blair wants to do that in South Antrim and give the money to farmers in other constituencies. Mrs Barton wants to take money from Mr Nesbitt's constituency and give it to farmers in hers, and so it goes on. The truth is that farmers who had already benefited from convergence would then be dipping into the funds of other farmers who had already been disadvantaged as a result of convergence, and to do that would put those farmers into greater hardship.

The ROI has not moved as quickly as Northern Ireland towards convergence and a flat-rate pillar 1 payment per hectare, and payments are still more based on production. Those are key factors that everybody needs to take into account. Ms Dolan said that Sinn Féin does not agree. Not agreeing is one thing, but we have to look at the facts. Facts are stubborn things from which it is hard to get away. Scotland was mentioned in the debate: Scotland pays out £128 per hectare. Wales pays out £243 per hectare. England and the Republic of Ireland have managed to reach convergence, and they both pay £261 per hectare. Lo and behold, Northern Ireland pays £333 per hectare. Therefore, the farmers who own large swathes of land that is more in the hills than in the lowlands have benefited most and benefit more than any other farmer in these islands. Consequently, Minister McIlveen decided that the scheme would operate for just one additional transitional year on a budget of £8 million. Without that decision, the scheme would have ended in 2017.

Taking that on board, I can say that SDA farmers, as a whole, have increased the value of their total payments from the CAP, despite the ending of the ANC scheme. While there will always be winners and losers at an individual level, at a regional level there has been no negative impact on SDA farmers. I want to make it clear that I do not intend to introduce an ANC scheme this year: I cannot. It is simply not possible. It would be possible to introduce an ANC scheme under the new Agriculture Bill, but the Bill's provisions will be operational only from 2021 onwards.

These provisions have been designed so that the House and the Minister have flexibility to make such decisions, but I have to point out that, in order to introduce an ANC scheme, the funds would have to be provided by scaling back direct payments to all farmers, which would result in that transfer from farmers who have already yielded money towards the ANC areas having to yield further funds to some of the constituencies that I mentioned. That has to be seen in the context of the £18 million on an ongoing annual basis that has already moved into the SDA. Rather than reintroducing a second area-based payment, I will focus my time and effort on devising schemes and support measures that are good for all farmers, in particular younger people who want to come into farming, younger people who do not own large swathes of land, who have to rent land and who want to make a living off farming and make a go of it, as opposed to the people who already sit on amounts of land and are not properly utilising it.

The United Kingdom has left the European Union and the CAP, and the most significant policy change affecting the agri-food sector in over 40 years means that our policies do not have to be constrained by the existing CAP pillar 1 and pillar 2 construct. We need to move to something new that better addresses the needs of Northern Ireland agriculture. In 2018, my Department undertook an engagement exercise on a potential future agricultural policy framework for Northern Ireland, and, in that proposed framework, my officials, in conjunction with key food, farming and environment stakeholders, identified four desired outcomes and a long-term vision for the Northern Ireland agri-food industry. The first of those is an industry that pursues increased productivity in international terms, closing the productivity gap that has been opening up with our major suppliers. An ANC scheme does not do that. The second is to have an industry that is environmentally sustainable in terms of its impact on and guardianship of air and water quality, soil health and carbon footprint and diversity. ANC does not do that. The third is to have an industry that displays improved resilience to external shocks such as market volatility and extreme weather events, which have never been more frequent and to which the industry has become very exposed. Again, ANC does not help with that. The fourth is to have an industry that operates with an integrated, efficient, sustainable, competitive and responsive supply chain with clear market signals and an overriding focus on high-quality food and the end consumer. ANC does not assist with that.

Those four outcomes complement each other and are broadly supported by the stakeholders. Our focus now needs to turn to how we can deliver those outcomes. I want, in particular, to mention the suggestion in the document around a basic farm resilience support as one possible option, moving forward, and the relevance to the debate today is that a basic farm resilience support payment could be designed to take into account issues such as natural disadvantage based on soil and climate factors, as well as targeting productive farmers. I have tasked officials to flesh out those ideas as quickly as possible.

That is only part of the solution. We need to help farmers, no matter where they are, to become more efficient and maximise sustainable returns so that they can achieve from the assets at their disposal. Those assets include the environmental assets on the farm, and SDA farms are well placed to play a major role in delivering more of the environmental outcomes that the citizens want and that we owe to future generations. Farmers should be properly rewarded for delivering those environmental outcomes, and it offers a way forward.

In summary, the role of SDA farmers, like all farmers, will evolve as we move forward. No industry can afford to stand still or, worse, go backwards. How we have done things in terms of convergence and all of that has not helped the industry to go forward and be more efficient and encourage young people into the industry. Most importantly, I want to devise the appropriate schemes and measures beyond 2020 that are good for all farmers and provide the basis of a sustainable and profitable future.