The ongoing debate at Stormont around whether DAERA should re-introduce Areas of Natural Constraint (ANC) payments to Severely Disadvantaged Area (SDA) farms in many ways encapsulates the difficult choices policymakers have had to make post Brexit.

A private members’ bill taken forward by West Tyrone MLA, Declan McAleer, seeks to re-instate the payment rates from 2018, when £8m was paid out at £26.57/ha for the first 200 hectares and £19.93/ha thereafter. McAleer also wants an annual uplift, linked to price inflation.

In response, DAERA has said there is no new money, so if MLAs vote the bill into law, it will have to be funded by cutting other farm payments. If that is the only option, then there is probably very limited appetite for the legislation.

The department also argues that SDA farmers benefited from the move towards flat rate payments, which resulted in an additional £19m coming into the SDA each year.

But on the other side, SDA farmers can legitimately point out that full flattening of payments did not happen, with the process halted at Year 5 of 7 in 2019.

There is also the decision by DAERA to cut payments to all farmers to fund new beef schemes – when compared to 2023, all entitlements have been cut by 15%.

A lot of farms in the SDA don’t finish cattle and can’t avail of the £75 per head Beef Carbon Reduction Scheme, so their overall farm support payments are down. But on the other hand, beef finishers do pass on a lot of this money in higher prices for store cattle.

Add into the mix environmental organisations who argue that if money is to go into an ANC scheme, then it must be tied to environmental improvement on farms. However, that begs the question why do that when we already have a Farming with Nature scheme?

Abandonment

Exploring some of the arguments shows none of this is simple. But there is still the issue of land abandonment and the negative impact it has on biodiversity etc.

All land outside of hard features, is now eligible for drawing down payments, so there is no need to keep rushes etc. under control using grazing livestock.

In the ANC scheme, there was a minimum stocking rate requirement of 0.2 livestock units per hectare – there is an argument for re-instating ANC simply to have that minimum rate in place again.