Now, that’s cabinet responsibility…
Peter Robinson has come to the aid of Executive colleague Michelle Gildernew who’s been shipping serious criticism from his party colleague and chair of the Agriculture committee, Willie McCrea, for selling off public land:
“We have a crazy situation where a couple of weeks ago the Ulster Farmers Union and others were saying we have a crisis here. We have to find the funds for the farm nutrient management scheme. Yet she is attacked when she takes action to do it. Now you cannot have it both ways – saying we need the money and then criticising people for doing that.“There seems to be among some people a culture of a direct rule mindset – shouting for money and not coming up with the solutions to fix the problem.”
Perhaps someone should speak to Conor?
I wonder how comfortable left Republicans still in SF feel about a DUP Finance Minister praising one of their comrades for asset stripping public resources. What next? Leasing it back from the private sector?
Heres an idea… we don’t need the f’n nutrient scheme
Europe says you do, and Europe pays
Speaking of Crossnacreevy (which admittedly I rarely do) what’s the craic with the half-car covered in flowers that sits at the side of the road?
“Europe says you do, and Europe pays”
Evidently not in this case – Europe fines if you dont meet the targets. What do you think the EU is – a democrarcy?
But surely part of the problem is that we have too many farmers on uneconomic farms
Aquifer,
SFP = approx 20k for an average enough farm. Now thats their main income for the year. Now with this new scheme (probably thought up by city boys who have never seen a real cow) demands farmers to either decrease cattle numbers or increase slurry storage.
Well if you decrease in size you are decreasing the little income you have so many (around 5000)have been forced to build extra tanks at the cost of no lower than £40,000.
And btw we only need the Eu money because people like you refuse to pay an extra 5p in the local shop for a container of milk. For some reason people want to give Tesco’s more profit than their fellow countrymen.
But ah well you can’t say we didn’t blame you for after 2013, NI will become a wasteland for thats when the Europe money is going to stop.
The world owes no-one a living FYU. If you can’t compete then get ut of the market and diversify. Why should one sector get continuous handouts when they aren’t remotely competitive?
The family farm has been disappearing at an increasing rate here in Canada, being supplemented by large international companies.
What is the situation in Ireland?
pacman, that’s all well and good, but when that leaves us so reliant on North American countries for our food we’re in a precarious situation. Not to mention we have no control at all on quality or guarantees, if there is an outbreak of foot and mouth or other type of shock what do we do then?
Not to mention the food miles..
If you can’t compete then get ut of the market and diversify.
How are you meant to compete when it’s physically impossible to make a profit?
And diversify… thats a wishy washy idea put forward by the pen pushers in Europe. That’s why its only a minute number of farms that have took this step. It’s not practical.