Sinn Féin MLA Declan McAleer has said that sheep farmers will be neglected if DUP plans for farming go ahead. 

The West Tyrone MLA said: 

“The DUP plans for farming are unfair and undermine small family farms and will penalise hill farmers. 

“For almost ten years, Sinn Féin Agriculture Ministers worked constructively with the European Union to help build a sustainable, equitable system of funding for our hill farmers and small family farms across the north. 

“However, post Brexit, DUP Agriculture ministers have set out to reverse these wins. 

“DUP minister Edwin Poots’ plans for future farming undermine our small family farms, ignore our sheep farmers, and penalise those who farm our hills and mountains.

“They have delivered no sheep support scheme, no plan to restore ANC payments for farmers on disadvantaged lands and no detail for helping young farmers. 

“This also places our farmers at a serious competitive disadvantage to farmers in the south which has the ANC payment and a sheep welfare scheme.     

“These latest proposals from the DUP could inflict even more serious and long-lasting damage on our hill farms and rural communities.”