Anger outside Assembly
Anger outside Assembly
AN estimated 5000 farmers gathered outside the Northern Ireland Assembly at Stormont, Belfast, this week to demand urgent government help to save their industry.
Organised by the Ulster Farmers Union, the farmers complained about the 80% drop in their incomes over the past five years, which now sees them living off an average £50 a week.
The demo was timed to coincide with a debate in the assembly on the farming crisis. Protesters identified the strength of sterling, problems with beef exports and the widening gap between farmgate and retail prices as the three main problems.
UFU president Will Taylor called on the government to make immediate use of the agrimonetary compensation available from Brussels and to press for special BSE status for Northern Ireland to give exports a boost. Greater price transparency and emergency aid for pig producers were also needed.
Assembly farm minister Brid Rodgers later addressed the crowd and said she would discuss agrimonetary compensation with her counterpart in Westminster, Nick Brown, next week. "Im quite convinced that farmers should not be made to suffer for a fiscal policy which is not of their making." *