New entrants and sustainability focus at FW Question Time

Farmers, union representatives, and environmental advisers discussed the pressing issues impacting agriculture in Northern Ireland at the latest Farmers Weekly Question Time in Cookstown, County Tyrone.

See more: Farmers Weekly Podcast Special – Question Time Northern Ireland

Sustainability

How should we address the sustainability of smaller livestock farms?

Farmer Bronagh O’Kane was concerned whether there is a viable future and enough support for small farms, but said collectively there was a lot of small farmers so if the government can find the right incentives, they will make a difference.

“Knowledge is power, and if we can come together in more farmer clusters and be a bit innovative with solutions, it would help us,” she said.

“We can all see it’s much easier for larger farms to get investments to fix problems.

“The policy has got a lot to answer for related to smaller farms, but we also can do a lot ourselves by joining clusters and reaching out to others.”

Ms O’Kane believed it was time for small farms to think a little bit wider about upping production, reducing inputs and delivering for both environment and government objectives.

The panel discussed the balance between environmental, financial, and social sustainability on smaller farms.

Farming Community Network chief executive Jude McCann said there were big problems environmentally in Northern Ireland, but farmers wanted to be part of the solution.

“There is a growing recognition that farmers are willing, and given the science, given the tools, given the right schemes, farmers will step up to the plate,” he said.

He added that farm structures are changing “significantly and very fast”, with the number of full-time farms in his local town falling from 12 to just two in the past few decades.

“We need to think of the social and cultural aspect of farming families, rural communities and rural schools.

“We need to be in a place that we can provide the tools and the science that allows small- and medium-sized family farms to have a viable, profitable business and are equipped to deal with some of the environmental issues that are coming very fast at us.”

Ulster Farmers Union (UFU) deputy president John McLenaghan made the point that the average farm size in Northern Ireland is about 40ha and it is predominantly made up of smaller farm businesses.

He calculated that farm income figures for the 25,000 farm businesses in Northern Ireland totalled just £43m, excluding subsidy payments, which he said was “absolutely nothing”.

“We would like to see farmers getting more value from the marketplace,” said Mr McLenaghan.

“Going forward, we have to recognise that livestock provides many benefits.”

He concluded that there is a multiplier effect, stating that if you give a farmer a pound then roughly £8 goes back into the local economy, so it represents a good investment for government.

Audience comment: William Taylor from Farmers For Action suggested the solution could be provided by the NI Farm Welfare Bill, which is being considered by politicians.

If enacted, he said it would provide farmers with a minimum of the true cost of production plus a margin for their produce.

Rental agreements

Is there a case for farm business tenancies to be promoted more in Northern Ireland?

Professor John Gilliland, farmer and AHDB special adviser, pointed out that Northern Ireland differs from the rest of the UK with its use of the conacre rental system.

“We are on a journey of change and it’s great to give an opportunity for young, educated people to come into our industry.”

Prof Gilliland said that the Republic of Ireland gives tax breaks to landlords offering businesses tenancies of five years or longer.

He had recommended that Northern Ireland should also look at this, but said that despite support locally, tax breaks were not considered a devolved issue and Westminster did not want to make a change.

He added that giving tenants more security could also have environmental benefits.

“As a tenant, if you want to plant a new hedge or a buffer strip, why would you do it if you are not going to have access or some security to that land? We have to address this – it’s a huge, gaping hole.”

Mr McLenaghan said the union wanted more young people to come into the industry and believed farm business tenancies might help, with land often being a barrier to new entrants.

He spoke about how the union is also working on other projects to match young farmers with other farmers coming to the end of their career, who may not have a clear succession plan in place.

Mr McLenaghan deemed the existing conacre system for land rental in Northern Ireland to be “pretty archaic”.

“There is a young, hungry generation keen to get farming and we are losing a trick by not getting them involved,” said Mr McCann.

He added that, in New Zealand, share farming is a huge thing and more could be done in Northern Ireland.

Overall, there was mixed audience support for the current conacre system, with some delegates more supportive and stating that often the same land was consistently offered to the same tenant for a long time.

Bronagh O’ Kane reiterated that the synergy of matching young entrants with older, knowledgeable farmers was very valuable and that she had learned a lot from older farmers while growing her own business.

Audience comment: William Irvine, UFU president, declared that the system in the Republic of Ireland was much better and that the whole of the UK should give tax incentives for five- or 10-year lets as it would give young people a much better chance of getting into the industry.

Next generation

How do we maintain the increased interest in farming for young people?

Mr McLenaghan felt the industry didn’t always shout enough about how good farming can be as an occupation.

“We’ve got to get the educational system right, we want to make sure we’re training the best people coming in, we want to keep them here and don’t want the brain drain of the best people leaving to farm somewhere else.”

He also called on other farmers to try to encourage others into the industry.

Farmer Michael Meharg emphasised his own love for farming and working with his cattle and said he was also interested in how technology and innovation can be applied to farming.

He uses no-fence technology and drones to help locate cattle in the uplands and believes there is a lot of technology that can help in farming and could help to entice younger people into the industry.

Training through agricultural colleges, apprenticeships, and peer-to-peer learning were all very valuable resources for encouraging younger generations, according to Mr Meharg.

Prof Gilliland said: “The first thing as a farmer is knowing actually when to move on and let the next generation in.”

His view was that there were a lot of young people interested in the journey to net zero, life sciences and biology.

“I’m not seeing a shortage of young people wanting to come into agriculture, it’s how we make room to get them in.”

Mr McCann agreed and said there was a whole new generation interested in both the environment and food sides of farming, but felt the industry was doing itself a disservice in how it treats new entrants.

“Young people won’t do the 17-hour shifts and work seven days a week, so there needs to be a change in mentality that actually the next generation aren’t going to work the same way as the older generation did.”

Pollution concerns

What are the solutions to the problems in Lough Neagh?

The panel discussed the causes and solutions of pollution in Lough Neagh, the largest freshwater lake in the UK.

Mr Meharg outlined the size of the problem, with the catchment area covering about 530,000ha of farmland.

He had found research showing about 60% of nutrients in the lake had come from farms, while 25% was from waste treatment plants.

The Soil Nutrient Health Scheme has shown that a lot of soils are saturated with phosphate, according to Mr Meharg, and algae takes advantage of those nutrients, leading to them growing in excess.

“We have got to look at how we manage the excess nutrients on farms,” he said.

Some 1,790 farmers voluntarily signed up to put up buffers on the land within the Lough Neagh catchment, which Mr Meharg said was helping to absorb some of the nutrients.

He considered that another option was to look at nature-based solutions such as growing willow.

Prof Gilliland chaired the working group for Sustainable Agricultural Land Management Strategy in Northern Ireland.

The report produced by the group mentioned the impact of phosphate on water, as unlike nitrogen, phosphate hangs in the environment. “If you can’t measure, you can’t manage it.”

Prof Gilliland said farms need to get soil pH right as a priority, with the 2016 study showing pH levels had dropped and this had led to grass utilisation plummeting to 5.2t/ha each year.

He added that aerial mapping had shown that 40-60% of buffer strips were in the wrong place.

“Lough Neagh is going to be a marathon, not a sprint – there are no quick wins.

“We need to understand how we are going to mind the surface phosphate that is already there and make sure we don’t keep topping it up. Our industry is going to be under the spotlight for a very long time”

Pollution in Lough Neagh is multifaceted, according to Mr McLenaghan, with lots of factors affecting it.

He said agriculture is one of them and it has addressed some of these issues, however, it often lacked a science-based approach.

“We do have to look at the science. The vast majority of rivers that run into Lough Neagh are actually in moderate-to-good status for phosphorus and 99% are meeting the EU requirements for nitrates.

“Too much time was wasted looking to see whose fault it was – it was everybody’s fault. Everyone is to blame and everybody can fix it.

“Farmers want clean water in Lough Neagh and want clean air and good soils,” said Mr McLenaghan.

Prof Gilliland mentioned the role willow can play in helping to reduce pollution, stating that 1ha of willow can absorb 540,000gal of water a year.

“As food producers, 80% of the food we produce we export. Lough Neagh is a global issue and people are talking about it around the world.”

He concluded that the industry needed to find a mature and transparent way of tackling the issues by bringing together the community and working with international customers.

“Improving your soil pH and driving your utilisation of phosphate and soil pH is key to that,” Prof Gilliland said.

Farmer health

What can be done to encourage farmers to priorities their mental and physical health?

Mr McCann believes too many people in farming and rural communities are not seeking help for health issues early enough.

The Farming Community Network has been working in partnership with Macmillan Cancer Support across the UK to promote the physical health of farmers and reduce avoidable deaths.

Mr McCann called for a cultural change in the farming industry to make it more normal to talk about health and wellbeing.

“We look after our animals well and call the vet when there’s a sick animal, [but we also] have to look to our own health, whether it be our physical health or mental health.”

Prof Gilliland had previously been part of a team that created rural support in Northern Ireland and carried out the first health checks for farmers in markets.

“As farmers, we are time poor and don’t prioritise ourselves. We will prioritise our animals and we will prioritise our crops.

“The weather is so extreme that we don’t want to make an appointment in case that is the one dry day,” he said.

Mr McLenaghan added that the mental aspect was also critical and that the social element has changed, with less people coming out to farms in recent years as more things move online.

He touched on how bovine TB outbreaks can also take a huge toll on the mental health of farmers.

Ms O’Kane said being on the farm, you think you are really active and strong, but you often hurt yourself more with repetitive movements.

“Being on your own, time is the big issue – there are always things to do. I would love to see more activities bringing farmers together.

“We think we are fit and healthy, but perhaps not as much as we should be.”

Mr Meharg said the industry tends to be male dominated and men are generally really poor at talking about mental health.

He noticed how lonely farming could be after moving from an office job with a team around him and lots of camaraderie.

Financial resilience

What changes have you made in the past three years that made the biggest impact to your bottom line?

Mr McLenaghan made the decision to change the business model of his own farm business a number of years ago, moving into the energy sector and building an anaerobic digestion plant.

“I felt we were price-takers in the market where we weren’t getting proper value for the food we were producing and moved into energy.”

He suggested that he may well pivot that business again and everyone needs to look at changes and opportunities to do something different.

The biggest change Mr Meharg had recently made was looking closely at the farm’s bottom line from an accounting perspective.

“I thought ‘what is the best way to look at farming?’, and it was to reduce inputs wherever I could, and to look at that throughout the farm.”

He decided to take fertiliser out of the farming system, be a bit less intensive, and look at the outputs.

Mr Meharg was also looking at other opportunities with land, such as conservation grazing.

Gaining a deep understanding of the soil had allowed Ms O’Kane to make her own soil amendments with the use of a worm farm, which had helped to increase production.

Her farm business had also moved away from continental stock to native breeds, with less focus on concentrate feeds.

Prof Gilliland said his farm business had benefited from being close to a city, which had allowed him to have more people out visiting and he had been able to learn from and engage with people who are not normally on farm.

Mr McCann deemed it important to open doors for young people to give them access to land.