Agriculture Minister Edwin Poots has virtually attended the first meeting of the UK Agricultural Partnership.
The UK Agriculture Partnership provides a platform for farmers, businesses, academics and policy makers to share best practice and new solutions to common problems, encouraging and promoting UK-wide collaboration where desirable, and providing a forum for technical discussions.
Minister Poots said: “I would like to thank SoS George Eustice, MP for inviting me to speak today. Our agriculture sector has shared issues across the United Kingdom so I hope that this forum provides a platform for collaboration and information sharing from all parts of the United Kingdom in the future. I am very well aware of the importance of evidence-based science to all parts of our agri-food sector, wider rural economy and environment.
“Globally, nationally and locally, we face many challenges to which we do not yet have the answers and which need cutting-edge science and innovation to address. Science underpins my Department’s functions and the DAERA Science Strategy, which I published last year, guides how we can optimise benefits from my Department’s considerable investment in science and innovation.
“As a Devolved Administration of the United Kingdom, we now have a unique opportunity to redefine our farm support policy in Northern Ireland for the first time in almost 50 years to better address our needs. In doing this, we must try to ensure that excess nutrients are reduced to restore the health of vulnerable habitats but also better utilised to provide energy and exportable green products. Agriculture plays its fair share in our journey to net zero carbon and that biodiversity loss is halted and reversed.
“At the same time, we must also ensure that our farms are productive and profitable and can continue to produce the food we need in a sustainable way. This is at the core of our Green Growth strategy.
“Water quality is vital not only for our health, but also our environment and our businesses. Yet, it is something we often take for granted and it is facing significant pressures as a result of human activities. My Department has invested significantly to help ease these pressures with schemes such as Farm Business Improvement Scheme, low emission spreading equipment, riparian strips and small woodland grants.
“In August 2021, I published the Future Agricultural Policy Framework Portfolio for Northern Ireland, setting out my vision for the future direction of farming support. In that, I stated that ‘business as usual for many farms will not be an option’. Higher productivity growth in our agri-industry, through science, innovation and knowledge transfer, must be achieved in a way that is compatible with improving environmental sustainability.”
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