The chair of the NI Food and Drink Association (NIFDA) Nick Whelan has called on politicians at Stormont to finally deliver on both a processor grant scheme, and a marketing body, for NI.

The Dale Farm CEO was speaking at the association’s 24th annual dinner, held as a virtual event last Thursday.

During his presentation Whelan outlined how NIFDA has the Ulster Farmers’ Union (UFU) on board on these key issues, having come to a new partnership arrangement with the farm lobby organisation to engage with politicians at Stormont.

“We will not agree on all issues, but we together see big issues and opportunities staring us in the face,” said Whelan.

Frustratingly, we have spent three years attempting to cajole and accommodate a process that completely ran to ground in July

The most immediate priority is for a processor grant scheme to help deliver capital expansion in the sector, and the ability to add value.

He pointed out that NI is the only part of the UK not to have a processor grant scheme in place.

But this NIFDA request is not new. “Frustratingly, we have spent three years attempting to cajole and accommodate a process that completely ran to ground in July of this year. Our competitors across the UK march on. This is competitive disadvantage in the starkest sense,” said Whelan.

The second NIFDA priority is for a NI food marketing body, set up in the coming months to promote the quality credentials of NI food, and facilitate the opening of new markets.

“It feels like the time is right. COVID-19 and Brexit bring an impetus we cannot ignore,” said Whelan.

But again, the industry has been here before, and a NI marketing body was a key recommendation in the 2013 report by the Agri-food Strategy Board.

This is not our proudest example of collaboration

Industry members of the board then set up a food marketing association in 2015 in anticipation that it would receive government funding, but it remains classed as a “dormant company”.

“There is a sense of fatigue and a lack of belief that it can be launched in NI due to the many failed attempts to get this across the line over the last 20 years. This is not our proudest example of collaboration (with government),” said Whelan.

With competitors in the Republic of Ireland and in Britain able to access capital grants and work with dedicated marketing bodies, he maintained that industry in NI has to work with two hands tied behind its back. “This unfair situation cannot continue,” he concluded.

Processor grant was to open in 2017

An Agri-food Processing Investment Scheme (AfPIS) was included in the NI Rural Development Programme approved for the period 2014 – 2020.

Previous versions of the scheme had offered processors 40% grants for new buildings and equipment.

The latest scheme was thought to have a budget of £25m, and was expected to open in 2017. But the political stalemate at Stormont meant it did not get ministerial sign-off, and while the Institutions were restored at the start of the year, other matters have taken priority.

Differing views on NI marketing body

On the back of the recommendation from the Agri-Food Strategy Board (AFSB) for a new NI food marketing body, the then Enterprise Minister Arlene Foster announced in 2015 that it would be set up.

It was to be industry-led, and based on the model of Scotland Food and Drink, confirmed Minister Foster at the time.

That model would effectively have created a new over-arching umbrella body under which the likes of the Livestock and Meat Commission (LMC), the Dairy Council, and NI Pork would have sat.

However, it is understood that not everyone is in agreement with this, with some in industry arguing that all these sector specific organisations should be dismantled, and subsumed under the control of the new food marketing organisation.

In a briefing for MLAs prepared by the Department for the Economy back in June 2020, officials said that they were still waiting on new proposals from industry.

We are prepared, but we fear ‘no deal’ because that would mean price rises for sure

“Up to this point industry hasn’t necessarily been agreed on the way forward,” Minister Poots told the Irish Farmers Journal earlier this month.

If the UK and EU fail to agree a trade deal, and food imports into the UK are hit with new tariffs, it will lead to higher prices for consumers, a senior supermarket boss has warned.

“We are prepared, but we fear ‘no deal’ because that would mean price rises for sure,” Asda chief executive Roger Burnley told the NIFDA event last Thursday.

He also highlighted his concerns around the practical operation of the NI protocol, which effectively puts the EU border for goods down the Irish Sea. Unless the EU and UK agree otherwise, for goods moving from Britain to NI, individual health certificates will be required for each item of animal-based product.

Asda has 17 stores in NI, serviced by around 200 lorries per week coming from distribution centres in Britain. Each trailer could have several thousand different items of food.

“The EU rule book wasn’t written with this kind of load in mind,” said Burnley.

We are hell-bent on finding a solution

He called for both sides in negotiations to be “creative and generous” and believes that the best solution lies in some form of trusted trader scheme for supermarkets that will allow their loads to be waived through. Given that Asda has no stores in the Republic of Ireland, there is no risk that its goods will move into the EU single market.

Burnley was also asked whether Asda would consider pulling out of NI in a worst case scenario.

“We wouldn’t contemplate that – we are hell-bent on finding a solution,” he responded.

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