Politicians urged ‘not to sell farmers down the river’

FARMERS pleaded with politicians “not to sell them down the river” at the NI Climate Change summit organised by the Irish Farmers Journal in the Glenavon Hotel last week.

Hundreds of farmers and their representatives attended the event which had been hastily convened ahead of the final stage of amendments to be made to the Executive’s Climate Change Bill at the Northern Ireland Assembly.

A bill brought forward by DAERA Minister Edwin Poots proposed a reduction in emissions of 82 per-cent which according to scientists was compatible with the UK achieving its net zero targets. However MLAs voted to change this to net zero by 2050.

The last opportunity to make amendments to the bill is anticipated to be next week. One of the speakers on the night, Peter McCann, of the Irish Farmers Journal, said politicians needed to hear the message loud and clear.

“It’s the reason we are here tonight, to limit the damage this target will do to our family farms and the wider agri-food industry,” he said.

As well as Mr McCann the other main speakers on the evening included Professor Myles Allen, a leading scientist from the University of of Oxford and Russell Smyth, a partner at KPMG, which had carried out independent research into the effects of the proposed Climate Change bills in the North and the Republic of Ireland.

Justin McCarthy, CEO of the Irish Farmers Journal, chaired the event and in setting the stage he said the role farmers can play in tackling climate change, reducing carbon footprint and feeding the growing population was being ignored.

As well as the DEARA bill, a second Private Member’s Bill was submitted by the Green Party’s Clare Bailey which proposed an ambitious target of net zero by 2045.

Mr Smyth said that KPMG’s independent research commissioned by industry stakeholders had shown that such a target would lead to the gross value of the beef industry dropping from £600 million to £200 million, a reduction of up to 98 per-cent of beef and sheep farms in less favoured land areas with 86 per-cent of dairy farms going out of business.

During his address Professor Allen said farmers could play a key role in reducing global warming going forward and suggested they were currently carrying the can for the damage caused by other sectors.

“We cannot solve the climate crisis without the farming community,” he said.

“Agriculture is being asked to compensate for the warming caused by other sectors. The agriculture sector is being asked to do far, far more than any other sector by these targets.”

The KPMG report is the only one of its kind which scrutinised the effects of the climate change proposals and politicians stood accused of sticking to their party lines rather than taking into consideration the research and the science.

A number of politicians were present on the night – many weren’t – and Victor Chestnutt, President of the Ulster Farmers’ Union (UFU) directly appealed to local political parties.

“Please don’t sell us down the river,” he said.

During a question and answer session, Deputy President of the UFU, David Brown said that politicians had accused farmers of “scaremongering and exaggerating” things in the climate change debate and that they were adopting the attitude that “it would never happen.”

On the KPMG report he said, “This report is about emissions and the livestock cuts to meet these targets, full stop. Get that into your heads MLAs, politicians. It’s the only piece of economic analysis out there.”

During the discussions it was highlighted that all greenhouses gases acted differently and as such their effects should be addressed separately.

The main speakers said local farmers were keen to play their part in addressing climate change however it was pointed out that many countries including Brazil had ambitious plans to actually to increase – not decrease – production in the next 10 years.

Ahead of next week’s anticipated discussions in the NI Assemby, Mr McCann said the local farming community needed “meaningful effective amendments.”