Northern Irish dairy farmers to be given £1.6m from Small Dairy Farmer scheme

Details of payments for small dairy farmers in Northern Ireland under the EU Exceptional Adjustment Aid (EAA) package has been announced.

£1.6m is being set aside to fund the Small Dairy Farmer scheme in Northern Ireland, and the rate of payment is 0.2 pence per litre.

The Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) said this means that eligible farmers will receive an average payment of around £750. Payment is capped at 500,000 litres of production.

The Small Dairy Farmer scheme, launched in May 2017, is the fourth element of the EAA package.

The scheme is looking to help maximise spend against Northern Ireland's £4.1m allocation of EAA funding for the benefit of livestock farmers.

The Rural Payments Agency is administering the scheme on DAERA’s behalf and payments to eligible dairy farmers are expected to be made by 19 September 2017.

Responding to the announcement, Ulster Farmers' Union president Barclay Bell said: “We stated back in May when the DAERA decision to implement a scheme for small dairy farmers was announced, we were not consulted on how best to allocate the under spend from this EU emergency funding.

“If we had been given the opportunity we would have encouraged DAERA to target it more strategically. From the outset, we pushed for schemes that would deliver long term benefits across the industry, such as the BVD scheme, pig health, and soils sampling and it is good to see that these have been implemented.

“The Union does, however, recognise that the funds have to be spent by 30th September and we would rather see the funding utilised rather than risk it being lost.”