Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mr Butler): I welcome the departmental officials, who are here to brief the Committee on the farm support and development programme and the SL1 for the Farm Sustainability (Transitional Provisions) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2025, after which I will ask them to take any questions that we have. I am sure you will; you will be well used to that. We are joined by Dr Rosemary Agnew, director of agricultural policy, and George Moffett and Manus McHenry, deputy directors of agricultural policy. I invite you to brief the Committee.

Dr Rosemary Agnew (Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs): Thank you very much, Chairman, for the opportunity to present on the two subjects. We will seek to answer any questions that members have following our short presentation. Members have been provided with a written briefing on the farm support and development programme and the legislation, and the Chair has taken you through some of the background, so I will try to keep my remarks brief.

Further to the written briefing to the Committee for this meeting, Chair, you will have received a copy of the written statement that Minister Muir issued to the Assembly yesterday, outlining his communication plans for the programme. At the outset, I draw to your attention the Minister's decision that, moving forward, the programme will be referred to as the sustainable agriculture programme (SAP). That is to clearly relay its importance in supporting change for a sustainable future and the key role that it will play in delivering his priorities.

The Executive's decision to formally treat the resource departmental expenditure limit (DEL) that has been baselined in the Northern Ireland block grant as Executive-earmarked for 2025-26 and future years was announced, as part of their draft Budget, on 19 December 2024. That is a significant and positive step forward. Northern Ireland is the only devolved region in the UK so far to have secured a proposal from its local Executive to earmark the agricultural support budget. That will provide assurance to farm businesses in coming years that their counterparts in Scotland and Wales do not currently have. Importantly, it helps to maintain our competitive trading position for the agri-food industry. It also means that the Department will have to show taxpayers and the Executive that we can deliver change and value for money against their commitment to funding.

While the draft Budget is still undergoing consultation, the positive announcement on 19 December 2024 provided the basis for DAERA to move forward with plans to roll out the sustainable agriculture programme. The Minister has now agreed the timeline for roll-out of the schemes of the programme over the next two years, and that will be available on the Department's website in coming days.

The sustainable agriculture programme has been co-designed with key agriculture and environmental stakeholders. Outside the room earlier, we were discussing the fact that that work commenced back in 2018 and has been ongoing since. The sustainable agriculture programme encompasses a wide range of schemes, which has been outlined in the Minister's statement. I will not name all of them, but there is a range of schemes, first, to support and assist farm businesses, such as the knowledge and innovation schemes. There are others that will serve as data platforms to provide important information to help farm businesses, such as the soil nutrient health scheme, the bovine genetics project and the carbon footprinting project. There are other schemes that will provide incentives or payments: the farm sustainability payment (FSP), the beef sustainability package, the Farming with Nature package etc.

Information on all the schemes will become available on the DAERA website in coming weeks and will be updated regularly. The Committee will receive briefings on the individual schemes, and a number of those are already in your forward work programme. A series of awareness events are planned to take place at venues across Northern Ireland in February and March. Those events will raise awareness of the programme, its scheme details and the benefits to farm businesses, and encourage uptake of the schemes. There are also plans to issue to farm businesses in Northern Ireland, by the end of March, the first edition of a sustainable agriculture programme newsletter in hard copy. That should serve as a helpful information reference resource for the programme.

The sustainable agriculture programme is fundamental to DAERA's support for farm businesses. It enables us to collectively achieve our environmental climate change goals, providing support and policies to help us move forward on a journey of change that ensures economic and environmental sustainability. I seek your support in encouraging farm businesses to engage with the planned programme of communications and to avail themselves of the information that is provided.

That brings me to the end of what I want to say broadly about the programme. With your agreement, Chair, I will say something quickly about the regulations and the SL1.

The Chairperson (Mr Butler): That would be good. Thank you.

Dr Agnew: The regulations are intended to give DAERA the legal powers to introduce the farm sustainability transition payment, but they also include a number of more general provisions that are intended to support roll-out of the sustainable agriculture programme. We are bringing forward a draft affirmative statutory rule (SR), and the SL1 for the regulations replaces the original farm sustainability transition payment SL1, which was discussed at the Committee in May 2024. It has been revised to reflect the up-to-date policy decisions, taking on board some of the views of the Committee and, now, the sustainable agriculture programme.

By way of background, a consultation exercise on the proposals that now make up the sustainable agriculture programme was undertaken in late 2021. The responses informed 54 policy decisions that were announced in March 2022. A number of those decisions relate to establishment of the resilience payment, which we are now calling the farm sustainability payment. In 2025, the farm sustainability transition payment is expected to attract applications from some 24,000 farm businesses. It will replace the basic payment scheme and provide a vital safety net for farm businesses. It is also part of the important transition to the farm sustainability payment in 2026.

A further statutory rule, via the draft affirmative procedure, will be required to introduce the farm sustainability payment from 1 January 2026. That will be brought to the Committee in due course. To ensure that the farm sustainability payment, when introduced in 2026, is directed towards farm businesses that are actively engaged in agricultural activity, the SR and the SL1 before you propose to legislate that farm businesses that did not meet specific agricultural production levels during a historical reference period — set by DAERA as 2020 and 2021 — will not be eligible. We discussed that at a Committee meeting in May. That historical years' requirement will not apply to applicants who have set up new farm businesses in any year following 2021. The Department will communicate with the farm businesses potentially impacted by the policy change, during 2025, to enable them to plan effectively. Those who did not carry out the necessary agricultural activities during the historical reference period will be able to transfer their entitlements. They will be given an opportunity to do so, should they choose to, by closure of the trading window in 2026. Entitlements not transferred by that date will expire.

In the transition to farm sustainability payments, if entitlements were leased prior to 1 January 2025 on a long-term lease beyond 15 May 2026, they will remain with the leaseholder until the end of the lease, at which stage they will revert to the lessor, only if they remain eligible for the farm sustainability payment. If the lessor is not eligible for FSP, they will expire. We understand that that does not impact a lot of businesses.

Entitlement leases agreed during 2025 and 2026 scheme-year-entitlement trading periods will be limited to one year only by this SR. Applicants for the farm sustainability transition payment in 2025 will need to activate three entitlements on three hectares of eligible land to meet the requirements of the farm sustainability transition payment and, moving forward, the farm sustainability payment in 2026.

Farm businesses in receipt of the basic payment scheme in 2024 had to be actively engaged in agricultural activity and meet the active farmer definition. That will continue in 2025, 2026 and further years. The active farmer definition was removed from legislation by the Rules for Direct Payments to Farmers (Amendment) Regulations 2020, as the provision was spent, given that it related to the establishment of entitlements in 2015. However, the recital containing the provision remains, and it continues to be applied by DAERA. Therefore, for legal certainty, it is desirable to express that in legislation. The regulations before you reinstate the active farmer definition in law.

The regulations introduce a number of additional changes and policies to enable continued roll-out of the sustainable agriculture programme. The regulations remove the reference to the total ceiling for Northern Ireland from regulation (EU) No 1307/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council, of 17 December 2013, which is now in UK assimilated law, and allows DAERA to determine the budget for each scheme year prior to the commencement of payments.

The regulations remove the requirement for DAERA to publish that ceiling, and they provide DAERA with the power to make additional payments to farm businesses that are eligible for the basic payment scheme, the farm sustainability transition payment or the farm sustainability payment in a scheme year, if required. That provides flexibility for the Department to direct funding to other important areas of the sustainable agriculture programme, but it also provides a mechanism to enable the Department to ensure that farm businesses benefit from the full agricultural support budget.

The regional reserve and the young farmers' payment were introduced as compulsory schemes for new member states to implement as part of the 2015 CAP reforms in order to encourage generational renewal in the agricultural industry. The regulations before you establish that 2025 will be the final year for new applications to the young farmers' payment, but successful applicants to the young farmers' payment in 2025 will receive the young farmers' payment top-up for five years, as is currently the case. While 2025 will also be the final year that new entrants and young farmers can obtain entitlements from the regional reserve, it is important to stress that new entrants and young farmers are not excluded from the farm sustainability transition payment or the farm sustainability payment and retain the right to buy or lease entitlements to allow them to access payments.

As we move forward, the Farming for the Generations scheme included in the sustainable agriculture programme will be the policy instrument to support generational renewal. Rather than focusing on purely financial incentives, that new scheme is designed to take a holistic approach to generational renewal that supports the intergenerational needs of the farm family.

Chair and members, I hope that you found that overview helpful. We are happy to answer any questions that you have.

The Chairperson (Mr Butler): Thank you so much. There is quite a bit there. I am sure that there will be plenty of questions.

There is one that just occurred to me. You mentioned — I know that the Committee was pleased — that, last year, the Finance Minister, in cooperation with the Minister of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs, baselined the resource DEL to treat it as Executive-earmarked. However, I imagine that, with the work that now needs to be undertaken, some of that is at risk, because, if it is not spent, it gets returned to HM Treasury. Has the Department done any work to assess the level of that risk at the moment? Does it anticipate that there will be as close to a nil return as we can get, if not a guarantee of a nil return?

Dr Agnew: We are working through how we move forward with the budget and the various schemes that the money would be spent on. There will be budget requirements for each of the schemes, but remember: the schemes are voluntary, so it is about encouraging uptake to ensure that the money flows to farm businesses and that the budget is spent out. One of the powers that we are seeking to take with the regulation is about ensuring that we have the flexibility to spend out. One of the last regulations that I mentioned is around taking the power to make additional payments, should we need to do so, to ensure that the funding is spent out. That is part of today's discussion on the draft affirmative regulations. Yes, there is a risk, but we are doing everything that we can to try to mitigate that risk.

The Chairperson (Mr Butler): OK. Thank you for that. Could you expand on how the programme will assist with, in particular, the development of an effective, functioning supply chain?

Dr Agnew: Yes, absolutely. Of the four objectives of the programme — the four outcomes that we are seeking to achieve — the work on the effective, functioning supply chain is slightly behind the others, but we have been developing a three-tier model of support for supply chains as part of the programme. Under that model, different levels of support would be provided for businesses that are in the early stage of collaboration — start-up schemes; those that require further collaboration and measures to scale up; and those that require innovative, strategic, collaborative measures given the challenges. As we move forward, there will be a separate briefing to the Committee on the details of those supply chain schemes. They are certainly not as well advanced as many of the other schemes are. The policy proposals for a strategic pilot are being developed. I envisage that those will come to the Committee for discussion in due course.

The Chairperson (Mr Butler): I noticed from the papers that the beef carbon reduction scheme is already delivering emission reductions above what were projected for year 1. Do you have any detail on the reasons for the success of that project? I know that the whole policy is deeply aligned to our climate ambitions.

Dr Agnew: I will make another comment, if I may, on an effective, functioning supply chain. Consumers want to ensure that there are credentials associated with their food and that there is a sustainable supply chain. Whilst in my answer to your earlier question I focused on supply chain measures specifically, it cuts across other measures, one of which is beef carbon reduction. That scheme was launched on 1 January 2024 to incentivise a reduction in the carbon footprint of finished beef cattle. In the first year of the scheme up to this stage — I will give you round numbers — around 8,200 businesses have applied and appear to be eligible for the scheme. The number of potential eligible cattle is around 296,000. The budget for that will be about £19·8 million. We are still finalising the figures, but that gives the Committee an indication of what they are likely to be.

In the first year, we have hit or have come close to hitting our targets on the percentage of cattle that we expected to come in, so we are seeing a reduction in emissions from cattle. From 1 January 2025, the maximum age at slaughter is 28 months if farmers want to receive the payment. That will reduce over the next couple of years, which will help reduce emissions. That is one of the key policy tools that will come to the Committee as part of the agriculture sector climate action plan.

The Chairperson (Mr Butler): I do not know whether you have this detail, but has there been any feedback from farmers on the drive to finish cattle at 28 months? Are there any challenges, known, unknown or unexpected?

Dr Agnew: The challenge that we are told about the most is that, to finish cattle, a lot of additional concentrate feeding is required in the last few months. The technical information that we provide through the College of Agriculture Food and Rural Enterprise (CAFRE) indicates that management of those animals throughout their lifetime enables you to finish them at 28 months with minimal or lower concentrate input. It is not about putting lots of concentrate in at the end of their lifetime. That is probably the main comment that we get. The farming sector recognises that it has been demonstrated that that is a tool that will help meet greenhouse gas reduction targets. There are less attractive alternatives to farm businesses based on the Climate Change Committee (CCC) advice.

The Chairperson (Mr Butler): This is my final question before I bring in the Deputy Chair. In line with the last question, the public think that farmers are interested just in the final value, but they are also interested in animal welfare. Do you believe that there is a good communications set-up? Given the example that we just spoke about, is there a good line of communication between our farmers and the Department so that we do not lose the good of what we are doing, that we keep the focus firmly on the ambition and that the Department takes on board any comments that come back about the operations? Is that happening?

Dr Agnew: The Minister's statement yesterday indicated that we will start an extensive communications programme to get information and knowledge out. Towards the end of June last year, the Committee was given a presentation on the plans for the launch of the communication package as regards knowledge, information and accessibility. We can always improve. What the Minister announced yesterday was the beginning of a communications plan to try to ensure that there are better channels for the flow of information on how to enhance productivity, improve environmental sustainability, improve animal health and welfare, etc. We can always improve. If the Committee has any particular issues that it wants to forward to us, we will look at those and try to address them.

The Chairperson (Mr Butler): Thank you very much.

Mr McAleer: Thank you for the presentation, Rosemary. There are some good things. It is good that we are one of the only regions to have our budget earmarked, which gives a bit of assurance. It is also good that the Department is going out to communicate with and raise awareness among the farming and wider rural community.

I have a couple of questions. There is definitely one change that I consider to be a red flag. You plan to end the entitlements for new entrants. That will deter new people — a couple, for example — from farming, because the farmer will be beholden to and at the mercy of another person, who is leasing them the entitlements. The average age of a farmer in the North is 59. From talking to farmers, I know that having their own entitlements and, indeed, the young farmers' scheme provide the best opportunities for young farmers. It is not a good idea to effectively remove new entrants from the new payment regime.

Dr Agnew: I suggest, Declan, that we are not removing young people. We have the Farming for the Generations scheme as part of the programme. The pilot has already started, and it will help inform a fuller programme. The regional reserve and young farmers' payment were legacy schemes from the EU that were implemented in Northern Ireland in 2015. The EU has moved on: it is no longer mandatory to have a young farmers' payment in the EU mechanism and the overall CAP mechanism.

The Department has looked for a way to have a policy instrument and schemes that, rather than focus purely on financial incentives, give a more holistic approach to generational renewal. It is too early to say, but it could well be that support is part of the package, and that that support is given in a way that allows a young farmer or new entrant to buy entitlements to develop a farm, if that is what they wish to do. It is not confining it to that. Any initial reviews that we have done do not demonstrate that the regional reserve and the young farmers' payment demonstrate value for money. We need to ensure that we deliver value for money. We are trying to move forward. We are not removing support for new entrants or farming for the generations, but we are removing old EU legacy schemes.

Mr McAleer: I will give an example. Entitlements are being carried over into the new regime. How do a young couple, who buy 50 acres of land but have not been involved in farming before, get those entitlements?

Dr Agnew: As of today, they have to either lease or buy the entitlements. Would the Department support them to lease or buy the entitlements? We are working through that. That will come to the Committee in a separate discussion. It could happen via a mechanism that is different from the current one. We wanted the regulation to provide clarity that the young farmers' payment and the regional reserve would cease for applications in 2025. I do not have with me the figures for the number of businesses that have obtained entitlement — we can provide them to the Committee — but the figure for the new entrant category is very small.

Mr McAleer: I have a final point on this one. Really, you are saying that the only ways that a new entrant can get entitlements are to either lease them or buy them from a farmer who either does not need them or does not want them. I do not see how that is the best way. A young person with no farming background who is starting out should have their own chance.

Dr Agnew: OK. We will note that. We will provide the Committee with the figure for successful applicants to the new entry category over the past seven years. It is a very small number, and the change is being made on that basis.

The Chairperson (Mr Butler): For clarity, the Department is saying that there is a very small uptake at the moment, and it is seeking to close that. It was introduced in 2015 under EU legislation that no longer exists, and it has not been picked up elsewhere.

Mr McAleer: Maybe the fact that the numbers are so small strengthens the case not to change it.

The Chairperson (Mr Butler): That is a reasonable argument, to be fair.

Mr McAleer: The other issue is the historical reference period during 2021 and actively farming at that time. That was during the COVID lockdown era. How will the Department decide whether a farmer was actively farming? What is the threshold, bearing in mind that that was a very unusual period?

Dr Agnew: I will pass to George, who will give you the detail, but the detail of how we will do that is in the draft affirmative SR, which is in your papers today. To be absolutely clear, we want to put it in legislation so that we provide transparency around how we make those decisions.

I will pass to George, who will give you a little bit more background.

Mr George Moffett (Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs): We took 2020 and 2021 as the two years for the historical years exercise. We looked at farm businesses at that time in terms of the livestock that they had on the farm and the activities that they undertook on the farm. We used data held by the Department, be that on the animal and public health information system (APHIS) or other data linked to poultry or pigs held on the farm. We went through that data in a lot of detail and identified that just over 1,900 are impacted on by the historical years exercise. Those are businesses that did not undertake any of the defined agricultural activities during 2020 or 2021. There are also just over 500 businesses that leased out all of their entitlements during that period. They fall into that category as well.

The Chairperson (Mr Butler): Regulation 3(2)(d) states:

However, am I correct in saying that the consultation looked at and the Minister considered it being 5 hectares?

Dr Agnew: Originally, when we came to the Committee in May, we proposed 5 hectares. The Committee wrote to the Minister about that. The Minister considered that and decided that that will remain at 3 hectares.

The Chairperson (Mr Butler): I knew that I had read it somewhere. Thank you for that. I appreciate it.

Miss McIlveen: Chair, I have a number of issues, if you will indulge me. I, like Declan, have a concern about some of the phrasing in the paper that we received, particularly around young farmers. You recognised that, when it comes to equality impact, that cohort will be the most impacted on. Will you talk a little bit about the pilot and how you see that as being sufficient mitigations for what is being removed?

Dr Agnew: Thanks, Michelle. Rural Support was awarded the contract to deliver the farming for the generations pilot. I think that you will have seen that in the press. It commenced with the delivery of a series of awareness sessions, comprising eight face-to-face meetings and two online sessions. The awareness sessions included an introduction to the scheme and input from financial and legal professionals. As I said, the scheme is about focusing not solely on financial incentives but, rather, on a holistic approach to generational renewal. It is intergenerational; it looks at the younger generation, the older generation and anybody involved in working on the farm.

Over 350 individuals attended the awareness events, representing about 250 farming families. The events included an opportunity to ask questions, which demonstrated that farm families are grappling with a wide range of complex issues, including the inheritance tax changes that were announced in the recent Budget. To date, 110 farm families have expressed an interest in the next stage of the pilot scheme, which is planning for succession. The farm families will be supported in completing a farm business review, agreeing a succession plan and determining the development needs of a successor. To achieve that, the farm family need to take part in workshops and receive around 20 hours of professional mentoring support.

The elements of the scheme are preparing the successor, leading succession and farming in partnerships, which is to try to link business owners without successors to new entrants who have limited or no farming assets. Perhaps that helps to address some of Declan's earlier queries. All of that is in the farming for the generations pilot, and that pilot will then inform a fuller scheme, planned to open around 2026. Where I am coming from is that there should not be a gap in support for young farmers or new entrants moving forward if they avail themselves of the farming for the generations scheme.

Miss McIlveen: Chair, even just for our own due diligence around all of this, I think that it would be useful to hear from the farmers' union and maybe young farmers about the scheme and some of the broader issues that are contained in what is being proposed today.

The Minister has said that the Farming with Nature package will be one of his top priorities. I am curious to know how that will be funded going forward and what budget will be used to fund it. My understanding about the development of the programme was that it was going to be nearly voluntary. Given where it is sitting now in the presentation, will it be linked to SAP?

Dr Agnew: On your comment about generational renewal, Michelle, the recommendations that went to the Minister were supported by the agricultural policy stakeholder group. Those recommendations included closing the young farmers' payment for applications this year and closing the regional reserve. That group includes representatives of the Ulster Farmers' Union (UFU), young farmers and so on, and they have been very positive about the opportunities from the farming for the generations scheme. I wanted to relay that to members.

I will answer your question on how Farming with Nature will be funded and then pass to Manus, who will give you a bit more detail about the scheme. Farming with Nature will require capital funding and resource funding out of the Department's budget. The resource funding is contained in the earmarked part, and the capital is a separate budget line. The Farming with Nature resource line will come out of that earmarked budget that we have as resource DEL. We have always been very clear from the beginning in communicating that we will redirect funding from FSP to other measures as they come online. We have not worked through what that means in practice for budget lines and so on, but Farming with Nature will be funded from two budget lines. Initially, as Manus will take you through, much of the support that is being planned is in capital, so it will come from a separate budget line.

Manus, do you want to give a little bit of a flavour of Farming with Nature?

Mr Manus McHenry (Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs): Yes. Thanks, Rosemary. The plan is to open the Farming with Nature package in 2025, and it will be phased in at various stages. The first stage will be the transition scheme, which the Minister will plan to launch at the Balmoral show this year. That will consist of a series of actions that all farmers will be entitled to apply to. It will include measures such as planting new hedgerows, retention of winter stubble and repairing buffer zones. It is that type of work. Thereafter, we plan to open a group project later this year on landscapes, which will look at collaboration between farmers, with the opportunity to engage across a larger area, where farmers can come together and focus on particular types of work that will head towards environmental improvement. The focus in that first phase of the scheme will be on biodiversity and habitat connectivity, and it is coming from where the Minister sees the Farming with Nature package going.

Miss McIlveen: To be clear, the budget is not linked to the SAP payment scheme, is it?

Dr Agnew: It is part of and is a key priority of the Minister in the sustainable agriculture programme, but perhaps your question is about whether it is linked to the farm sustainability payment.

Miss McIlveen: Yes.

Dr Agnew: It is not at the minute, no.

Miss McIlveen: Not at the minute. OK.

Dr Agnew: That is not in the plans. The only link that it may have is that it may require budget from the farm sustainability payment resource budget as we move forward. We are still working through the issue of conditionality for the farm sustainability payment, which, I think, is where you are taking me.

Miss McIlveen: Yes, I am.

Dr Agnew: Off the top of my head — George, tell me if I miss anything — new land eligibility rules will come in from 2026 that will make all land eligible except hard features. Farm businesses will have to comply with the new farm sustainability standards, on which the Committee will receive a briefing in mid February. Farm businesses will also have to participate in the soil nutrient health scheme, in carbon footprinting and in the bovine genetics programme. Participating means joining the schemes, having the tests and the audit done and undertaking the associated training. That is the plan for 2026.

Miss McIlveen: That is the direction of travel.

Dr Agnew: That is the direction of travel. Habitat assessment may need to come into that, but we are not ready to go there yet. We are a long way off being able to require that of all farmers, because the technology is not there. It has not been tested. However, that is an ambition of our current Minister, in order to improve environmental sustainability across all farms.

Miss McIlveen: I have one other issue. I previously raised the issue of support for potato growers as a consequence of the floods. There was no mechanism to support them during that period. Given what we experienced last week, mushroom growers in particular, some of whom are here to give us a presentation on the Bill, will have been similarly affected by the most recent storm. I guess that there will be no hardship payment for them either. Will a mechanism be put in place for that kind of crisis funding, given the reluctance of the Minister and, maybe, officials to support any potential request? What would that look like? Is any consideration being given to that?

Dr Agnew: As part of the sustainable agriculture programme, we seek to develop a crisis framework that will set out how the Department would respond to a weather-related crisis. It will cover who needs to be involved in a group, how we identify the trigger points to justify the value for money of any spending, and so on. If that process demonstrates value for money, the Department will then need to consider where any funding would come from. In Europe, as you know, Michelle, crisis funding comes out of common agricultural policy (CAP) pillar 1. That might mean looking at the resource DEL that is earmarked budget for FSP and a lot of the other schemes to fund those crisis measures. There are plans to put all that into policy papers for the Minister. He has already seen some of them. The crisis framework and its operation would be the subject of another presentation to the Committee, but there is still quite a bit of work to be done on it.

Miss McIlveen: Do you have a timeline for that?

Dr Agnew: I do not have a timeline for it. I will be perfectly open: very few people are working on it, because we have too many competing priorities, given the staff resource pressures in the Department.

Miss McIlveen: OK. Thank you.

The Chairperson (Mr Butler): We touched on that earlier. We will probably contact the Department about last week's weather and its impact on food security and farms.

Mr McGlone: Thank you for your presentation. I have two brief questions. Holistic intergenerational development sounds almost like a philosophical concept of some description. You mentioned measures such as workshops. Perhaps granda is watching this and wants — or does not want — to chat things over with the young fella later. Can you break that phrase down into practical concepts for the farmers who will be watching? What does it mean? What is the practical support for it? Does it mean that the Department will encourage people to have those difficult conversations in families? If so, good luck with that. Will you break down what it means for people, young and not so young, who are watching and may be in that situation?

My second question relates to the Farming with Nature package. Certainly, where I come from, it is a very contemporary issue. Will any of the Farming with Nature grants or supports involve tree planting? If so, why so? Where I am from, since the storm last Friday, my office has dealt with hundreds of cases, and virtually every one is attributable to trees that have fallen on or in proximity of the lines. It might be useful for us to hear at some stage from Northern Ireland Electricity (NIE) about the practical elements of that. Possibly, conditionality should be inserted in grant aid about tree planting in the future — I am not so sure what we can do about it now — close to electricity lines and possibly even telephone cabling and all that sort of stuff. The issues with the utility lines have left people without power, water and Wi-Fi connectivity. Is that a practical consideration that you have factored in? I know that it is a very live one — that may be the wrong word, because it might not have been live — or a very real issue over the past week in the area that I come from.

Dr Agnew: Thanks, Patsy. I will answer your first question, and I will pass to Manus to answer your question on Farming with Nature. What does it look like? The first thing that I will say in answer to the questions that are coming is that it is a separate work stream, and the Committee might benefit from a presentation that is solely on the farming for the generations scheme. I am just suggesting that.

In answer to your question about what it looks like, it looks like the farm family, from the granda to the father, the young fella and the tot of whatever age, sitting around the table and having those difficult conversations. The workshops will be those difficult conversations about completing a farm business review, agreeing a succession plan and determining what development a successor needs. The legal and financial support to do that is part of the scheme. We realise that they are very difficult conversations. That is why we have set out on a pilot. You ask why there is a pilot. We need to try the methodology in the pilot to see how it works.

Mr McGlone: Your pilot will probably be with those who are willing to operate it. They are the ones who we do not really need to worry about, because they will do it anyway. Have you engaged with the Ulster Farmers’ Union on the practicalities of it?

Dr Agnew: Yes. Again, it was presented through the agricultural policy stakeholder group, which has representatives from all of those key stakeholder organisations. They are very supportive of it. They see the need for those conversations, and that is why the co-design approach has been very central to all of it. I will be open: not every stakeholder organisation gets what it wants, but we reach a consensus. It is difficult, and we recognise that. The pilot is being delivered by Rural Support, which has experience of being in those difficult situations. It is difficult, but we have to try something. We hope for positive results. We are very encouraged that, so far, 110 families have expressed an interest in moving forward to the next stage. It is voluntary, however, and you are right to say that it is.

Mr McGlone: It will be useful. You will come back to us at some stage with the outcomes.

Dr Agnew: Yes.

Mr McGlone: That will be good. I turn to the second issue.

Dr Agnew: The Farming with Nature package.

Mr McHenry: The straight-out answer to your question on conditionality is no. We have not considered that part of it. For any given farm, if a farmer applies for the tree planting option, they are provided with the autonomy to plant the trees wherever they wish on the farm. In a lot of cases, we have seen farmers planting trees along march ditches etc where they separate one farm from the next. I do not have any analysis that indicates the types of trees that fell or where they fell, such as on the roadside or wherever. In a lot of cases, farmers make the decision about where to plant the trees knowing that the trees will grow out at some point. You would hope or expect that, in any situation, the farmer will make the right decision about where he plants the trees on his farm. We have handed that decision over to them. We do not have any conditionality against that at the minute. I have noted the point, and we will consider it along with the team. I recognise the point that you have made.

Mr McGlone: DFI has been involved on the roadside where trees have come down. In most cases in which power is still down, trees have fallen on lines. Trees have come down in fields and across bogland, and they have taken the wires and everything with them. That is a point for consideration. Chair, I suggest that, at some stage when things have settled a bit, we get a wee while with NIE to get a clearer picture on this. Would that be OK?

The Chairperson (Mr Butler): Absolutely. We considered that earlier in the meeting. That will be put through, Patsy.

Mr McGlone: That is grand. Thank you.

Mr Irwin: There are a couple of issues. You reckon that 1,926 plus 400 —.

Mr Moffett: Five hundred.

Mr Irwin: So, roughly 2,400 will not be eligible for the new farm sustainability payment. Does the Department make the decision on that?

Mr Moffett: We have looked at the data that we hold to identify those businesses. We will be writing to them. If a business feels that it should not be on that list, it will have the opportunity to come back and provide evidence to support that.

Mr Irwin: Is there an appeals mechanism?

Mr Moffett: We are working through the process to set that up, but, initially, they will be able to respond and come back with any additional evidence to support why, they think, they should not be on the list. We will work from there.

Mr Irwin: The other issue is the entitlements that they hold. There is a short period for them to get rid of those entitlements. The time frame is to 15 May 2026. Does that not leave a glut in the market of entitlements? Should they not get more time to remove those entitlements?

Dr Agnew: We hope to communicate with the businesses that are impacted on as soon as we, hopefully, have the legislation in place. We are hoping to take the draft affirmative legislation to the Assembly in early February for debate and motion. The date is still to be confirmed. If that legislation goes through — let us be positive that it will — we would hope to be in contact with those impacted farmers fairly quickly so that they could be thinking about it during 2025 and then decide what to do by 15 May 2026. It is not a short period. The entitlement trading window, which is open from 1 March 2026 to 15 May 2026, is a short period, but that is the case every year. Will there be a glut in the market? This will coincide with a change in the land eligibility rules, which will increase the amount of eligible land that is available in Northern Ireland, so we do not see there being a glut of entitlements.

Mr Irwin: One could cancel the other out.

Dr Agnew: Potentially. That is partly why we moved it back to coincide with that other change that I mentioned.

Mr Blair: Thanks to the panel for the information presented. We have clarified that the Ulster Farmers' Union is part of the agricultural policy stakeholder group. Will you remind us of all the participants in that group before we carry on?

Dr Agnew: The organisations that are members of the agricultural policy stakeholder group are the Ulster Farmers' Union; the Northern Ireland Agricultural Producers' Association (NIAPA); the Northern Ireland Food and Drink Association (NIFDA); Northern Ireland Environment Link, which has representation from the RSPB, the National Trust and Ulster Wildlife; the Dairy Council; the British Veterinary Association; the Northern Ireland Meat Exporters' Association; and the Northern Ireland Grain Trade Association. To be fair, those members give up their time to come to all meetings and to respond when we ask them a series of questions. They go back to the membership in their organisations and provide us with detailed responses. We take those responses forward to our Minister and give him the views of a, b and c, and we tell him whether there is consensus or mixed views. Ultimately, the Minister has made the policy decisions with the views of that stakeholder group known to him.

Mr Blair: That has helped to shape the process.

Dr Agnew: Yes, absolutely.

Miss Brogan: I need to declare an interest because my partner is named on a farm business.

Thank you for the presentation, Rosemary, George and Manus. My first point has already been covered, but communication with the farming community is key. The issues are complex, and it is hard for people to get their head around them. A lot of the farmers whom I represent are part-time farmers. They have a full-time job and other things that take up their time. It is challenging for them to get their head around it all. The roll-out of the information sessions that the Minister suggested is a good idea. We held some local sessions last year, when it was first mooted, and they were useful. I would like to be kept in the loop on that.

The ring-fenced funding has been mentioned, and it is welcome that the Finance Minister and the Executive agreed to ring-fence the money. What contingency plans does the Department have should the money not be ring-fenced in the future? If there are issues with that type of funding, does the Department have a contingency plan in place?

Dr Agnew: To be fair, I do not have a contingency plan in place in my division, and that is a question for our finance director, who, I think, is coming to the Committee next week. It is not a question that I can answer, Nicola.

Miss Brogan: That is fair enough, Rosemary.

The next point that I want to pick up on has also been discussed, and it is about the limitations to eligibility and the need to have carried out agricultural activities during 2020 and 2021. George said that about 2,400 businesses will be ineligible and mentioned an appeals process. Are there other types of support for those who will be deemed ineligible, even after an appeals process? What supports does the Department have in place for those farmers?

Dr Agnew: The simple answer is that all that it will do is exclude those farmers from being eligible for farm sustainability payments. They will still be eligible for all the other schemes, except the beef carbon reduction scheme and the suckler cow scheme. If the farmers meet the eligibility requirements, they can avail themselves of the other schemes.

Miss Brogan: That is good.

The Chairperson (Mr Butler): Do members have any further questions? We will have a discussion on the back of the session after the officials leave.

I am struck by a couple of things. First, Nicola used the term "ring-fenced", and I used the term "earmarked", because that is what is in the legislation. Is there any technical difference between "earmarked" and "ring-fenced"?

Secondly, the interpretations in the legislation are incredible. The level and need for interpretations for the changes to the names of schemes adds to the complexity. A former Minister and former Chair of the Committee with considerable experience have asked good questions, and we are trying to get our heads around it. I would not confidently say that I have done so at this stage. Whilst I get its intent and ambition, there will be debate in the Chamber about the different sectors, and we want to make sure that we bat from a firm base.

Can you tell me the difference between "earmarked" and "ring-fenced"? Then we will discuss where the Committee wants to go with it.

Dr Agnew: I am not an accountant. I do not see a difference between "ring-fenced" and "earmarked". Again, I ask you to pose that question to the finance director of the Department. When it initially came from the Treasury, it was "ring-fenced" Treasury funding, and the Finance Minister and the Executive have decided to call it "earmarked".

The Chairperson (Mr Butler): It is because of the animals?

Dr Agnew: Sorry?

The Chairperson (Mr Butler): Maybe it is because it is to do with agriculture and animals.

Dr Agnew: I do not know, but I do not perceive there to be a difference, and it has to be used for the functions as laid out in legislation.

The Chairperson (Mr Butler): OK. Hopefully, you got a feel from some experienced politicians today that we are trying to get our heads around the legislation. I will not second-guess what the members are going to say about it. Thank you for your time today. I am sure that we will see you again soon.