Farmers are "beyond frustration" with the lack of progress on Northern Ireland’s Rural Development Programme (RDP), according to a farming union.
The new Rural Development Programme for Northern Ireland will run from 2014 – 2020. It was created to help improve farming businesses, protect the environment and support rural development projects.
But the Ulster Farmers' Union (UFU) says events are "bordering on the farcical", and that Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) officials should be "embarrassed and ashamed" by the lack of progress.
“Since 2014, when the present RDP began, DAERA has managed to spend just a fifth of the overall budget. We are now facing the prospect that funding promised will be lost to Northern Ireland farmers,” said UFU deputy president, Ivor Ferguson.
“This is inevitable unless DAERA officials focus on what should be the priority – ensuring that in the final RDP before Brexit an impact is delivered for rural families and for rural towns,”
Angered by inaction, Mr Ferguson branded DAERA's performance as "pathetic": “There are no signs whatsoever of key measures in the programme coming into force anytime soon, there are business cases for some of the schemes still not even submitted or approved at this stage.
“It will be at least another year before any payments from the Environmental Farming Scheme (EFS) reach farmers. Quotations submitted to DAERA in good faith for Tier 2 of the FBIS are now a year out of date and prices have risen considerably and this must be corrected by DAERA,” said the UFU deputy president.
'Political vacuum'
The UFU believes the programme design was good but describes its execution by DAERA as "abysmal".
Mr Ferguson added: “From EFS to the Farm Business Improvement Scheme (FBIS), the entire RDP has been tainted by negativity and failure to deliver. We are inundated with calls every week from farmers asking for updates. We can give no answer, other than to point to fundamental failings by DAERA.
“These are even more frustrating when there is a political vacuum and no mechanism to apply pressure to officials. Given that the focus of the NIRDP is to improve competitiveness and the environment, DAERA has failed to deliver either - more than three years into the programme.”
'Lamentable'
The farming union says progress is "lamentable" compared to the position in the Republic of Ireland. There, by the end of this year, the government will have spent around 70 per cent of its €4 billion RDP budget.
Their agri-environment scheme has been funded and opened three times to new applicants and their capital grant scheme has opened every year since 2014.
“Our closest neighbour is blazing ahead, taking full advantage of EU rural development funding. We welcomed the reopening of FBIS Capital Tier 1 and the Business Development Groups but these are just a small part of a wider programme where DAERA is failing to deliver. If funding is not to be lost, its new year resolution, regardless of the political vacuum, must be to focus on delivery across the entire RDP,” he said.
