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The director of Sustainable NI, a not-for-profit organisation that mainly works with local government to promote sustainable development, launched an extraordinary attack on NI farming when she met with MLAs on the Stormont Agriculture committee last Thursday.
Describing NI farming as “industrial agriculture”, Nichola Hughes went on to tell MLAs that NI needs to reduce livestock numbers and should not be proud of the fact that we produce enough protein to feed over 10m people.
“This export model has all been about growth, growth, growth. But there has been a huge environmental toll on NI. There is a huge ammonia crisis. All our lakes are polluted. NI is kind of the dirty corner of the UK, and it has all been for growth and the majority of the wealth has gone to agri-food processors and exporters, and farmers are hanging on by a thread,” Hughes said.
She claimed that 200 years ago NI was covered in woodland, and boars and deer roamed the land.
“That’s all gone and there is now a monoculture of grass,” she said.
Responding, Ulster Unionist MLA Rosemary Barton invited Hughes to get out of her Belfast office and come to Fermanagh any weekend to sample the countryside there.
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