It has been known for the last few years that DAERA intended attaching various conditions to future area-based payments made to farmers.

That process of conditionality is now becoming clearer, with farmers having to sign up to the soil nutrient health scheme (SNHS), bovine genetics project and carbon footprinting to ensure they don’t have a penalty applied to a future Farm Sustainability Payment.

It is understandable that there is resistance within the farming community to the concept of conditionality, especially when it has simply been added to all the rules and regulations that already come with farm payments.

But at the same time, if as an industry, we want government to help fund initiatives which ultimately benefit farmers, then we have to accept that something must be given in return.

In the case of the SNHS, government put up £37m, while in the bovine genetics project, there is a commitment of £16.6m to cover the cost of genotyping all breeding cattle in NI. This is not money coming off direct payments or any other farm support, so there has to be a high level of adoption for DAERA to be able to justify the spend to auditors. The way to do that is to make participation a condition of farm payments.

Change

However, one change in conditionality requirements around the bovine genetics project is that it will be a requirement for cattle farmers to sign up for the scheme and do the training, but they don’t have to actually genotype breeding animals.

That change might appease some political opponents of Minister Muir and some within the industry who are wary of the scheme, but it is hard to see how the position can be sustained. The success of the project is totally reliant on having a high proportion of our breeding herd genotyped and then matching that genetic information with performance related data gathered from marts, meat plants and dairy processors.

Either way, there are real and lasting benefits to be had for farmers from this scheme. As an industry, we should not take lightly the millions of pounds of public money committed to help ensure it is successful.