Payments have started to be made to over 8,000 farmers in NI claiming under the Areas of Natural Constraint (ANC) scheme.

The scheme is worth £26.57/ha for the first 200 hectares, and £19.93/ha thereafter, and paid to those farming severely disadvantaged area (SDA) land.

Those rates are only around half what was paid in the 2017 scheme, and unless things change, this is the last payment to be made. That comes after a decision taken by former agriculture minister Michelle McIlveen in December 2016 to end funding, after a one-year transition payment worth around £8m (paid in 2018), with the money coming directly from the Stormont government.

Prior to that decision, DAERA had consulted with industry, and floated the idea that money could be taken off all direct payments to fund future ANC schemes. But that was not a realistic option, especially given that as we move to a flat area-based payment (in theory in 2021) money is gradually coming out of lowland and disadvantaged areas and going to the SDA. Therefore, the ideal scenario for industry was that extra money could be found within Stormont budgets to keep funding a scheme.

With hospitals, schools and road infrastructure under pressure, that money was not forthcoming.

But ever since the post World War II era, some form of hill livestock scheme has operated in NI. Those schemes were designed to encourage farmers to manage hill and marginal land. In recent years, a minimum stocking density of 0.2 livestock units per hectare was in place. With the scheme gone, the last link between production and a farm support payment has been removed.

As a result, policymakers should not underestimate the potential for land abandonment in the SDA if, or when, direct payments are removed post-Brexit. Quite simply, the economics of production do not stack up without a significant financial incentive.

As land abandonment is bad for rural communities and bad for the environment, a meaningful and simple scheme must emerge.

Read more

ANC payments made to 8,000 farmers