Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): I welcome the following Nature Friendly Farming Network (NFFN) representatives to the meeting and invite them to brief the Committee. Present this morning, we have Mr Cormac Dolan, Northern Ireland manager, and Ms Louise Skelly, Northern Ireland vice chair. You are very welcome, and I ask you to give us a brief overview. We have your papers, so please, go ahead.

Mr Cormac Dolan (Nature Friendly Farming Network): Thank you very much, Chair. First, welcome to you and congratulations on joining the Committee. It is great to see you here. We welcome the continued engagement. I have briefed most of the rest of the Committee members before, thankfully. Hopefully, we can continue to be involved in these processes.

For a bit of an introduction as to who we are, you will see that in the document, but we are a completely farmer-led organisation made up of about 500 farmer members in Northern Ireland and a bit more than that in public support as well. A lot of our farmer members are in areas of natural constraint (ANCs) or, as you see in the title of what I have submitted to you, what we see as areas of "natural opportunity" as well. First, the terminology "natural constraint" does not represent the potential of those areas in what we can gain for biodiversity, climate mitigation and empowerment of the farmers. We are looking at that perspective a lot. Farmers, such as Louise here, are able to tell you that they are ready and willing to go in those areas. They are producing results already, but, if they can be supported and rewarded for the myriad results that they can bring, in addition to food production, that could be public money put to really good use and be secured for the farmers long term.

You can see that, in our summary of the key approach to the policy, a large concern for me is that we still await a full replacement of previous agrienvironment schemes. We have managed to continue some of the tranches from the environmental farming scheme (EFS) previously. We have farmers who avoided the potential cliff edge that we saw coming for funding, but we still have not seen that guaranteed to continue into the future. Given the way that things are looking at the minute, we have no reason to believe that that is guaranteed, and the ambitious language around improvement to that agrienvironment scheme that we have heard previously is not being met. That is my initial worry: where will the funding for the Areas with Natural Constraints (Payments) Bill come from, and how will that be guaranteed not to be coming from agrienvironment schemes or even the farm sustainability payment? That would really just be a bit of money moving around and would not show anything tangible for the farmer members.

For the long run, the opportunity that exists in those areas and that land has much to give as regards Government agreements and legal obligations that are in place through the Climate Change Act (Northern Ireland) 2022 and the carbon sequestration potential of peatland restoration. In the previous EFS schemes, peatland was not valued as highly as it should be, in our opinion. Farmers who have that land could be bringing in that potential and a lot more outcomes. From a farmer perspective, to us, it would be locking that funding in for longer, because, if it is not justified and is not showing the outcomes, we have no reason to believe that it will continue to happen. We all know how tight government funding is and the competitive aspect of keeping that funding coming to the DAERA budget.

Louise, do you want to add anything to that, from your farming perspective?

Ms Louise Skelly (Nature Friendly Farming Network): As Cormac said, NFFN is a network of farmers in Northern Ireland, and it is growing. There is a notion, somehow or other, that farmers are not keen on the environment, but nothing could be further from the truth. Farmers look after 75% of the landscape of Northern Ireland, and they have a huge interest in environmental outcomes and benefits and particularly in maintaining areas of natural constraint and areas of special scientific interest (ASSIs). However, farms have to be sustainable, and part of that is about being financially sustainable as well.

On our farm, for example, we have done a lot of things off our own bat. We farm a medium-sized farm along the River Bann, and we have a huge interest in making sure that we do not do anything on our farm that would, in any way, take away from the natural resource that is the River Bann and the landscape around it. We have been planting trees, and we have introduced a lot of diversity on our grazing land. We have been working to improve the natural environment, as well as trying to maintain a productive farm and produce food. That is what most of our members are at. It needs to be realised that not just the production of food but benefiting nature are real outcomes that have a real impact, including on the wider economy. If we can support farmers to do that, it is a win-win for everybody.

We use regenerative techniques on our farm, and, over the past number of years, we have found that to be a much healthier way of working, not only for the animals but for the environment and even for ourselves. We need to recognise that there are huge opportunities to support farmers to do that. We do not belong to any schemes. Historically, we were involved in some schemes, but we found that the people who helped to plan the schemes and the inspectors had two different views. I received a fine, which, at that time, amounted to quite a substantial sum of money, because of two different views. It made me very nervous to enter into any other schemes. Therefore, in recent years, we have been doing things off our own bat, in partnership with other organisations, rather than with DAERA. Whatever scheme comes in needs to be implemented in a reasonable way. I am not on my own in that opinion. I know others who have had difficulties working with previous schemes.

Moving forward, there is a real opportunity to provide a win-win for everybody. If we support nature on our farms and look after areas of natural constraint, that will be really good for the Northern Ireland economy in the long term, but it needs to work for everybody.

Mr Dolan: The story that Louise tells is a common one among farmers. I am sure that many Committee members have heard that story about EFS agreements in the past. If we are to rebuild that good faith, what comes next needs to be really clear, flexible and attractive in order for farmers to take it up. We are seeing examples such as Louise's; we have tons of members who are doing things off their own bat. They are ready and willing to do that. If you are going to win over people who perhaps are not as keen or are too tied to their budgetary constraints to consider those aspects for nature, you need to make the schemes attractive, and they need to be long-term schemes.

I keep coming back to the point that funding being guaranteed in the long term is the only way to achieve that. It is for government to decide, but, given our climate and biodiversity commitments, there is a real opportunity to lock that in for that reason, never mind on health and all the other aspects, and all the good that can come from flood mitigation, carbon sequestration and better air and water quality for our citizens. I will leave the funding side at that.

We advocate for results-based payments, whether that is in agrienvironment or whatever comes about through the Areas with Natural Constraints (Payments) Bill. If you can tie it with those results, it is clearly money being put to good use and good value. It empowers the farmer and lets them know where they are, rather than being subject to a prescriptive, one-size-fits-all approach. If a farmer can see where they are, have the right support to get to a better place — say, from six out of 10 on a scoresheet to eight out of 10 — and see their payment go up in that way, and through an approach that applies to their land, specifically, rather than the made-for-the-whole-country approach that we have seen in the past, it would be much better. We could also get much better farmer engagement. The story that Louise told of disengagement with previous schemes is real. There needs to be a real effort to win back that good faith from farmers and get the results that we all want to see.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): Thank you very much. We are listening.

Louise, that was very interesting. You mentioned your regeneration techniques. I am interested in those. Will you tell us a bit about the regeneration techniques that you have been using?

Ms Skelly: Historically, we were pushing our farm in terms of productivity. That was not a particularly comfortable place to be. We discovered that, as we were increasing productivity, our profit on the farm was going down. I became a member of the maximum sustainable output (MSO) project, a number of years ago. Through that, we discovered that there is a sweet spot on every farm. On our farm, we found that, when we got to a certain level of productivity, every pound that we were bringing in was costing us £4. Through that process, we learned that every farm has its own natural resources: the sunlight that it gets, for example, to be able to produce grass. It is about maximising those natural resources on the farm. We have moved away from using artificial fertiliser on our land; introduced clover seed; introduced diversity in the species that we grow; and slightly reduced the number of animals on the farm, but we are building that up again until we find the equilibrium with which we can work comfortably. Over the years, we have also planted trees and hedgerows, for instance. We feed a minimum of concentrates. We are not "pasture for life", because, coming up to lambing, we feed ewes that are carrying triplets and twins. That is to ensure that we have good-quality colostrum. We cannot say that we are totally concentrate-free, but our lambs are produced 100% grass-fed.

We are maximising the natural resources on our farm to produce a healthy product. We feel that that is a better product for the people who are eating it. The farm is healthier. We are a few years down the road and feel that there is a healthier biodiversity on the farm. We also feel that the animals are healthier and more resilient to the like of worms and diseases. It is a less stressful farm for us to run and manage, and we see a resurgence of nature on the farm. To my mind, it is a no-brainer. We are happy with how we have gone down that route.

"Regenerative" is a word that is bandied about. I am not sure what it means, but, to us, it means simply trying to find the right balance on our farm in maximising our natural resources, reducing the amount of bought-in inputs, producing healthy food and finding a healthy farm for people to work on and animals to live on. That is my version of nature-friendly farming, or "regenerative" — whatever you want to call it.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): Would your group support a co-design approach to working with the Department?

Ms Skelly: Yes, we have been very much part of such arrangements. For example, we were part of the nutrients action programme (NAP) task force, which, to my mind, was a co-design approach. Our organisation would be more than happy to sit down with anybody and work.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): Cormac, you said that future support should move from compensating farmers for natural constraints. How do you see DAERA being able to measure and verify the outcomes?

Mr Dolan: That could be done on a case-by-case basis depending on what you are measuring. There are classic examples. You could have indicator species in a species-rich grassland to try to measure how that is looking. The experts on my right might be better at answering that question, but it is being done. In the report, I reference the Burren Programme and Wild Atlantic Nature. They are classic examples to show how it has been done. They have created scorecards with different ways of measuring those outcomes.

It cannot be outcomes-based only. If it comes to creating habitat for a specific species, you cannot be penalised because the bird did not choose your area to build a nest in. That is not something that we want to see for farmers. However, you can measure the habitat and its appropriateness for that. For example, you could be rewarded for making a home for a particular bird.

A scorecard system is being used elsewhere, and that is what we recommend. They do it in Austria, and I have been to farms there where that has been happening. They work closely with ecologists and use indicator species, again with species-rich grassland. It could be about measuring habitat appropriateness for species. It could also be for linear actions, improvement or management of what is currently there. To sidetrack slightly from your question, we feel very strongly that management should value what is already there. We are currently in a biodiversity decline. If we are going to arrest that decline, we need to recognise the good work that farmers have been doing.

Farmers such as Louise are currently being penalised when it comes to lowering farm sustainability payments and the basic payment scheme (BPS), and nothing is replacing it to allow them to take action. If you have already planted your trees, you have healthy hedgerows, and you have put in multi-species swards, the Farming with Nature transition scheme has nothing really to offer you. If you are in a designated habitat area, you are still struggling to find that potentially in the long term with the current scheme, EFS ending and nothing of great substance being written properly yet.

There are a few ways of doing it, and we would be willing to engage further on that design. My predecessor shared with DAERA a scorecard pilot that the NFFN created. I could try to hunt that out for you and bring that to the surface again. My predecessor had done that before the Farming with Nature scheme started.

There are a few different ways, and it would not be just one way, but I think that it is the best way to empower farmers to say, "You are currently at x. You want to get to y, but you can find your way to get there", rather than saying, "This is the date when you have to take your stock off the land", especially with climate change and EFS grazing agreements. They will have a date and a certain number of stock that can go on that land, but, if it is getting warmer and the grass is growing for longer, they will see problems with fire load or more stock could potentially be put onto that land at certain times, and it could be monitored very closely.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): The farmer who is on the land will know best.

Mr McAleer: I declare an interest as the Bill sponsor. Thank you very much for your presentation. It was very helpful. Louise picked up on something that chimed with me, because it impacts on a lot of farmers whom I have dealt with: they are too nervous about taking part in agrienvironment schemes. That is something that I discovered years ago. I know farmers who are too nervous to take part in schemes because a wrong tick on a box or a wrong part of the specification could completely rule them out.

I have been told for weeks here by the Department that the likes of Farming with Nature is almost like a benefit to ANC farmers and is almost like a substitute for the ANC payment to justify not giving it out. However, the reality is that the likes of Farming with Nature requires farmers to fork out thousands of pounds to take part in a scheme at the risk of being turned down because the smallest detail has been missed. I know farmers who have lost out on thousands of pounds because they have ticked the wrong box on a form, and they lost it on appeal.

Farmers are nervous. A lot of the regenerative and nature practice is being driven forward by farmers, and they are not getting paid for it. That made it more challenging for farmers in ANC areas, because that is where most of the high-priority biodiversity and habitats are. However, those farmers, according to the DAERA census, without support, are running at a £17,000 deficit on their farms. That is the less-favoured areas (LFA) farmers. The severely disadvantaged area farmers, who are a subsection of LFA farmers, will be running at a much greater deficit altogether. I have brought the legislation because I feel that that subsection of farmers is completely missing out on the current support schemes. Do you think that ANC farms are critical to maintaining priority landscapes and, indeed, wider rural communities?

Ms Skelly: They are very important for the whole economy, not just for agriculture. If we lose some of our areas of special scientific interest and areas of natural constraint, we will lose some of the things that Northern Ireland is really loved for. At the same time, the people who farm those areas need encouragement to do that in a way that sustains and improves that environment.

There is definitely a fear, but it is not just even about ticking the wrong box. Sometimes, you draw up a plan with someone from the Department and then that person leaves and the inspector comes along with a different view. That is not the fault of the farmer at all. That is just you happening to be a victim of circumstances, which happened to me and a number of my colleagues. That was a long time ago; it is historical. That has left people with a nervousness about going into schemes, because, sometimes, the people who are training you or developing the plans and those who inspect them have two different views. There is not a lot that a farmer can do about that.

There needs to be total clarity in any scheme. It needs to be workable, and people need to have confidence in it as they move forward. I am quite clear that I did not tick any wrong boxes, but it still cost me £6,500 a number of years ago, which a small farm can ill afford. I am not on my own in that regard; other members of our network have had similar experiences. That is history, and we would like to think that, as we move forward, we can come up with something better than that. That is the challenge for you and the Assembly. We are happy to work with you to develop something sensible for farmers, because our farmers take great delight and pride —. We had a farm walk down Dale Orr's farm a few weeks ago. It is such a happy place to be when you see the environment and the animals thriving. It is win-win for everybody. With a bit of encouragement, that can be replicated across the board. That is what we really need. I would love to see a thriving agricultural economy and a thriving natural environment. That is the vision of NFFN, and we are happy to work with the Department to bring that about.

Mr Dolan: May I follow that up? What is the overall direction that we want to see for agriculture here? That is the question that we should keep going back to. If we are rolling back to support based on area-based payments, is that the direction that we have been talking about in terms of public money for public goods and the trajectory that we want to see for the landscape and wider society when it comes to air quality, water quality and climate mitigation? The struggles for those areas will potentially get harder as we see bigger input shocks from political things elsewhere that are out of our control, as well as from the climate shocks resulting from those areas drying out in the summer, including the fire risk being higher and all the other things that we will see. We need to look at it on a landscape scale and a long-term scale and not just over the next two, three, four or five years. We need to think 20 years ahead and beyond and to make that clear for farmers so that they can plan and work with the Department to put long-term resilience strategies in place. That is where I see the support needing to join together. It should not just be about priority habitats, ANC or the wider Farming with Nature scheme. It all needs to collaborate and work together in a big land use strategy across the whole country.

Ms Skelly: I will add to that and give you a practical example. This has been a very dry year. I am in County Down, which is one of the driest counties. We farm along the River Bann, so we have sandy soil. You asked me about regenerative techniques. We have been at that now for a number of years, including biodiversity in our grassland. We survived this summer comfortably because of what we did in recent years with nature-based techniques on the farm. We never ran out of grass, which we perhaps would have done in previous years. We did not have oceans of grass, but we had enough. We believe that that was because of what we implemented on the farm, such as having slightly longer roots in the grass and allowing some older seeds that were dormant in the ground to come back and having latent seedbeds. Moving the animals on a rotational grazing system allowed the land to be more resilient over a fairly lengthy period — it was something like 70 days — when we had no rain. In previous years, that would have been a much tighter challenge. I believe that the work that we did over the past five years helped us to get through that quite well. When others were feeding silage, we still had grass, and we found that encouraging from a practical point of view.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): Thank you very much. That was really helpful.

Declan, I am going to move on because quite a lot of members are indicating that they want to speak, and we are trying to get as much as we can out of the session.

Mr Blair: Cormac and Louise, thank you both. It is good to see you. Some of the questions that I was formulating have been answered, so what I ask will probably ask you to summarise what you have told us or what is in your detailed submission.

I think that you are saying that there cannot be specified targets in any nature component associated with the Bill and that, if there were one — I think that there should be — there should be flexibility because what might be needed in one place might not be needed in another, and it is probably best not to be too prescriptive in that regard. It would be helpful if you could confirm that.

You touched on peatlands. If we were building an environmental package to accompany the Bill — the Bill sponsor is aware that I think that we should be — and there were four or more central themes to that, what would they be?

Mr Dolan: I think that I got what you mean in the first part of your question. Yes, we would want to see flexibility, because it is not the case that ANC is one type of habitat, so we would need to look at that case by case. Each farm is different, and each farm could have different habitats on it, so we would want to see flexibility and recognition for specific action in specific places. We would also want to see that done in a way that fully involves farmers and with them agreeing to the direction of travel and how they can get there, with support from the Department, organisations such as ours and environmental NGOs. There are people ready and willing to help farmers to do those things.

On your second question, if I have understood it, we have tiers 1, 2 and 3 for special areas of conservation (SACs) and ASSIs and the bordering areas with species. That is a good way to go about it strategically: supporting all of those in a way that means that, potentially, it goes out to eventually cover the entire ANC and beyond in how we approach the landscape. If we are going to target and protect the SACs — the jewels in the crown, as it were — we need to be protecting around them, because we see the damage that comes from surrounding landscapes. Let me know if I am not answering your question correctly, but I go back to the point about looking on a landscape scale across the whole country and with a whole-farm approach in helping habitat and nature and encouraging the resilience that Louise talked about.

Resilience will be everything, and that is how we will get the multi-layered outcomes from land use that we will need.

Mr Blair: That does answer my question. Thank you.

My next point is made for confirmation on the absence of specifics. As Bills come through the Chamber or the Committee, people often want very specific things to be included, but very specific things can omit other very specific things and create loopholes or discrepancies. My thinking is that you are saying that, if such an environmental target or framework of targets were to be associated with the Bill, they should be based on policy frameworks rather than legislative frameworks, so that they can be changed should needs change in one ANC compared with another.

Mr Dolan: I probably agree with you. That will probably make very little difference to a farmer on the ground in terms of how the policy is applied, but, yes, we would want flexibility in the system.

Mr Blair: OK. Thank you.

Ms Murphy: Thank you very much for your presentation, which answered most of my questions. I will circle back to your written submission, which contains similar examples from the Republic, England, Scotland and Wales. How successful have the different approaches in those areas been?

Mr Dolan: I talk to my colleagues across the water, including my Scottish equivalent, who is the Scottish manager for the NFFN. There are a lot of lessons to learn from Scotland about the outputs. In Scotland, there are examples of what, we would say, has not proved to be good value for money in supporting farmers. I would like to look into that further and then be able to follow up with a better answer to your question. I will talk to my Scottish equivalent and get better examples.

The best examples that I have seen are in the Republic: the Burrenbeo Trust scheme and the agri-climate rural environment scheme (ACRES), which have had IT problems etc, but the fundamental idea and trajectory of which are where we want to go. The Wild Atlantic Nature project is also showing really good results, with farmers essentially taking control, looking at it themselves, understanding the process, feeling empowered and getting more excited about what they can deliver on their farm. For a long time, there has been a lot of trying to tell farmers what to do, and it has been aimed at maximum output at all costs. That encourages people not to think about what they are doing. Farmers get a lot more satisfaction from their job if they feel empowered and that they can be more experimental, with, of course, the right support to know that they are going in the right direction.

The Welsh examples are probably not as close to what we are talking about, but Wales have added social value to the payments, which shows the different opportunities. We are unfortunate in that we are the last of the countries mentioned to get a new scheme out the door, but that fact also gives us the opportunity to cherry-pick what we want and learn the lessons from where it has not worked out.

Ms Skelly: We can learn from other people's mistakes.

Mr Dolan: Exactly, yes. We do not need to reinvent the wheel. If you want more details, I am happy to follow up on that with you.

Ms Murphy: Absolutely, Cormac. That would be useful, especially because, geographically, our land and climate is exactly the same as that in the Twenty-six counties: it mirrors our conditions. The learning from their comparative schemes, as well as from the examples in Britain, could teach us a few things.

Mr Dolan: We would be happy to facilitate any visits, because we have a close working relationships with Farming for Nature, Base Ireland and other organisations in the South.

Ms Murphy: Thank you.

Mr T Buchanan: Do you see the ANC payments that would be introduced by the Bill as a vehicle to increase food production, or do you think that that may not bear fruit as the Bill anticipates?

Mr Dolan: If it is an area-based payment, there is no guarantee that you will get any outcome from it, apart from helping to subsidise the lost money that Declan talked about. How can we possibly say what it will do — because every farm business is individual — if it is just based on the land that you own and there is nothing to say that you will produce more food or bring more for the environment? We go back to the point that those farmers have a great opportunity to do both very well. I would just try to encourage that any policy addresses that.

Mr T Buchanan: In your presentation, you say that there is:

Do you know what the percentage of overlap is?

Mr Dolan: I do not have it here with me, no. It would definitely cover large amounts of ANC. I think that most of the designated habitats would be within ANC. Again, I would look at the landscape approach, tier 1 and tier 2 and the bordering areas of that land, and then it could be scaled out. As regards support for farmers, ANC mapping is useful as it can show where the financial constraints are. However, when it comes to meeting other aims that the Assembly has towards biodiversity and climate change mitigation, I suggest that you look at it more strategically. If it is done in a way that is attractive and gets farmer buy-in, you will be able to get all those outcomes. Sorry: I do not have the percentage now.

Mr McAleer: I have a point of information. The Northern Ireland Environment Link (NIEL) presentation states that 68% of AONB in the North is in ANC, which covers 43% of all NI land. That is a point of helpful information.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): I would have expected it from you.

Mr McAleer: It is thanks to NIEL, not me. [Laughter.]

Mr T Buchanan: OK. Thank you.

Miss McIlveen: Thank you for your presentation. It is really good to hear from a practitioner and someone who is operating schemes that have probably been developed by themselves, of course, on the ground. I really appreciate Louise also being here today.

You mentioned that you were on the NAP consultation group. Were you involved in the agricultural policy stakeholder group (APSG) that developed and co-designed the sustainable agricultural programme (SAP)?

Ms Skelly: I have not been involved in that.

Mr Dolan: During the NAP process, we sat in the room as a stand-alone organisation — the NFFN — and, in the development of Farming with Nature and other aspects of SAP, we have sat alongside the NIEL. We welcome both engagements. However, when it comes to the value of getting more farmers in the room, there is a lot to be said for encouraging our being seen as the farmer organisation that we are, because we speak up for many active farmers who are doing the type of farming that the Minister and wider Government have been saying is the direction of travel that they want to see. Yes: we have been involved in the ongoing conversations, but there has been a lot of discussion of what "co-design" means. I have to say that we do not really like that word being used to describe what has happened so far.

Miss McIlveen: OK. I am just curious: during the conversations with the APSG on the development of SAP, was ANC regarded as a priority?

Mr Dolan: No, not when it came to what we, or any other stakeholders, were looking at. You are getting into semantics, really: for farmers, the important aspect of any of it is what happens on the ground, regardless of whether it is called an "agrienvironment scheme" or an "ANC payment" that is tied to environmental outcomes. Therefore, no; it was not regarded as a priority previously. We have been focusing on —. I just sit in the Farming with Nature meetings on the development of priority habitats and the Farming with Nature transition scheme, so I am unable to speak for the wider APSG. However, since you have asked, I would welcome the NFFN having a seat in that room.

Miss McIlveen: That is very helpful. In your introduction, you asked where the funding would come from. We are all asking that question. In their contribution, Department officials were very clear that there is no additional money but, were the Bill to pass and be given Royal Assent, there would be an onus on the Department to make payments within 12 months. Obviously, that money will come from the agriculture and environment pot, and that will have an impact on a lot of the work that you are doing. What is your response to that?

Mr Dolan: We have a big fear about it coming from any agrienvironment pot. Taking something that is tied to environmental outcomes and giving it to something that is not could be quite disastrous for wider society. Also, I keep going back to the point that it is about the long-term security of that money for farmers. I do not believe that it will be guaranteed for any length of time unless it is tied to achieving ongoing outcomes and legal obligations that the Government have to meet on biodiversity recovery and climate. The payments need to be tied to something if they are to continue in the long run.

In the written submission, we mention the Scale of Need report. I am sure that the Northern Ireland Environment Link team will mention that too. We are below the mark of what we need to do to meet those obligations. The 30 by 30 target, for example, is a distant dream. We are in 2026, so how can that possibly happen, given that we are at 4% of land or even less? If we are to meet such targets, we probably need external funding from somewhere else to build it up more, but that will not come from ANC or other area-based payments. The payments need to be aligned with something else to justify the government spend. I would love to see more money in that pot, as would our members and farmers more widely, but it will not happen unless it is tied to results.

Miss McIlveen: Of course, the challenge will be that, if the Bill passes, there will be a statutory obligation on the Department to make those payments. That creates a further burden.

Mr Dolan: Yes. I hope that it is clear from our presentation that we do not really support the Bill unless it can be guaranteed that the funding will be provided in a way that does not take away from the agrienvironment schemes or other potential farming issues.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): Thank you very much for coming in, Cormac and Louise. It was good to receive your presentation. It has been really helpful.

Mr Dolan: Our most recent report outlines the resilience and economic advantages of nature-friendly farming, which Louise spoke about. I will leave a few copies for members.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): Leave those with us, Cormac. Thank you very much.