DAERA has so far allocated £40.3m of funding for coronavirus support measures, according to a report by the NI Audit Office.

The total is made up of £30.3m from the NI Executive and the other £10m has come from reallocated funds from within DAERA’s own budget.

The largest cost has been the market intervention package for the dairy, beef, sheep, potato, and horticulture sectors. It has an estimated cost of £28.6m, although £7.2m of this has not been allocated yet, and is being retained for possible future measures.

The report states that the Agri Food and Biosciences Institute (AFBI) received £2.8m of funding from DAERA to bridge an income shortfall due to the pandemic. A further £1.3m was spent on COVID-19 testing kits after AFBI laboratories were approved for coronavirus testing in April.

Elsewhere, funding worth £2m was spent on “digital services” which mainly involved equipping DAERA staff with computers and other technology to assist with working from home.

The remaining coronavirus related expenditure within the department includes £4.1m to cover additional waste management measures for local councils, and £1.5m was put up for a support package within the fishing industry.

Farmers in NI had access to other coronavirus measures from outside DAERA’s budget, such as the self-employed income support and bounce back loan schemes.

The NIAO report shows that across all business sectors in NI there have been 76,000 claims worth £216m under the self-employed scheme, and £809m has been allocated for 26,300 bounce back loans.