Ulster Unionist MEP Jim Nicholson has said that the ball is now in the court of Ministers in Westminster and the Northern Ireland Executive in relation to the European Commission’s new €500m agricultural support package. 

Mr Nicholson said that they must now decide whether to provide additional match funding to maximise the impact of the package announced by the EU’s Agriculture Commissioner Phil Hogan this week.

Following a meeting of the European Parliament’s Agriculture Committee in Brussels Mr Nicholson said:

“The new agricultural support package announced by Commissioner Hogan has three main elements; most notably a €150m EU-wide initiative to incentivise dairy farmers to cut milk production and a €350m ‘conditional adjustment fund’ to support vulnerable livestock sectors of which the UK has been allocated €30.19m.  Northern Ireland will receive a share of this ‘envelope’.   

“The final element includes a variety of so-called ‘technical adjustments’ such as allowing member states to make advance payments to farm businesses. 

“Crucially, the conditional adjustment fund is to be implemented at national level and member states can provide a top-up of 100% - potentially doubling the support provided to their farmers without state aid implications. 

“This puts the ball back into the court of national and local governments.  The challenge now is for the Northern Ireland Executive, particularly the Agriculture Minister, to find the matching funds to maximise the benefit of this package at farm level as it begins to be implemented from mid-September.

“National and regional governments across the EU have had the power to match-fund initiatives such as this for some time but so far at a local level they have not stepped up to the plate.  Will Stormont’s Agriculture Minister now come forward with the extra funds to assist the agricultural industry in Northern Ireland?”