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The outgoing chair of the farmer-funded Agricultural Research and Development Council (AgriSearch), Michael Bell, has suggested that levies applied to dairy, beef and sheep producers in NI should be increased.
Writing in the 2017/2018 annual report published last week, Bell pointed to the fact that the levy has not changed for many years, suggesting it has, in effect, declined 45% due to inflation.
“They must, in my view, be increased in the near future, if only to stand still. Otherwise our innovation base will decrease and our industry’s competitiveness will erode,” said Bell.
At present, the AgriSearch levy on sheep is 5p/head, on dairy it is 0.02p/l and on beef it is 40p/head, of which 10p goes to help fund Animal Health and Welfare NI.
In 2017/2018, the total AgriSearch levy income came to £427,888. The money is essentially used as a lever to secure larger pots of research funding from the likes of DAERA.
In the last year, with a number of research funding streams open for applications, AgriSearch has used £708,000 of levy money to draw down around £18.2m of project work across the livestock sector.
New projects include a study around use of new technologies in grazing of dairy cows, antibiotic use in dairy, beef and sheep, ram genetics and a new test for Johne’s disease.
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