Farmers in the North have been warned that within 10 years the "cheque-in-the-post" subsidy culture will no longer exist and that the economics of free trade will be the new order. The warning is contained in a report entitled A Vision for the Future of the Northern Ireland Agri-food Industry, compiled by representatives of the farming, food-processing and rural development sectors. This report was recently presented to agriculture minister Brid Rodgers. The report also calls for the setting up of an agri-food agency. Farmers incomes in the North have, according to recent statistics, fallen by 69% since 1995. This report's authors conclude from this that Northern farmers are now 30 times more dependent on subsidy cheques than their counterparts in the rest of the UK which leads to a reduction in "the incentive to farm efficiently and drives down quality". Looks like we're in for another decade of major change in the agri-food sector, if this report is anything to go by.
