‘If there’s another Covid wave, farmers will feed the nation once again’

Ulster Farmers’ Union president Victor Chestnutt says there can be no doubt about the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on local farmers - and outlined just how badly many of them were hit.

But the Bushmills man, himself a farmer, also had a message of hope ahead of any potential second wave of the crisis - and insisted that in many ways people everywhere had finally woken up to the fact that farmers, as key workers, had “fed the nation” throughout it all - and were more than ready to do so again.

“I think the one thing that farmers have gained is a bit more respect. When the supermarket shelves were starting to empty, people were looking to look towards the farmer, and realise that they had to keep going.

“Here in Northern Ireland we have a lot to be proud of. We are a population of 1.8 million. And whilst farming does make up a lot of local businesses, quite a lot are small or part-time, and yet they produce enough food to feed the country.

“We also need think of all the all the others workers, such as the processing plant workers, and those who deliver it and keep that supply going, as well as those who deliver everything to the farm that it needs. The whole system is integrated, and we all realise that we are key workers, and are up for the challenge of feeding the nation.”

But as Victor outlines, most sectors of the farming industry were affected in some way by the Covid crisis, almost as soon as it started to impact on China in the beginning.

“We started to see the income of from some of our products go down, but like everyone else, we never thought it would actually land here with us so quickly.”

Victor says that beef and poultry products started to see a fall in price as early on as March. Milk prices were affected too, although he says they had been doing better, and so were slightly more adequately equipped to “take the hit.”

Pigs were particularly badly hit as well.

“It was across all sectors - it wasn’t just one sector.”

But he relates how many farmers were finding themselves in difficult situations, with less of an income, and in some cases, trying to operate without their normal workforce.

“There were farmers who had workers who maybe had someone vulnerable at home, and felt it wasn’t right to ask them to come in.

“For example, in North Antrim here, farmers would have had assistance during lambing season but they didn’t have that now, and so were under more pressure.

“Another thing that was difficult was getting veterinary help - you could only ask a vet out to the farm if it was an absolute necessity.”

Our conversation turns to the impact of lockdown on farmers’ mental health; many of whom possibly already were in contact with very few people on a day to day basis, due to the naturally isolated nature of the job.

“We are a bit of a rare breed, and a lot of us work on our family farms and don’t have so much interaction with the public.

“But still, that loss of interaction, which meant that we couldn’t go to the marts, or have meetings, the loss of that throughout the summer - that had an effect.

“There would have been farmers who maybe lived by themselves, and would have had their dinner in the local mart three times a week.

“They would have gone there with maybe business to do, or were just taking a look to see what the prices were like, then had their dinner before going home.

“The local marts did provide a service for people to meet other people, and when they stopped the social element of that all disappeared.

“It’s hard for me to quantify how much of an effect that had on farmers’ mental health, but I’m sure there were those who suffered, and I know that Rural Support had an increase in calls around that time.

“However the other side of it is that those who worked in offices or with a great number of people probably found it more difficult to get used to seeing no one compared to farmers, so for many, their lives went on fairly much as normal. For example during lambing season you mightn’t have been from one end of the lane to the other, you were so busy. It was the choice aspect - you were just cut off from the outside world.”

But Victor does concede that support - particularly in the form of financial - has been available to farmers since the pandemic began, and eased some of their woes.

And many accepted, turned to, and indeed embraced alternative methods of conducting their business.

“Some used the likes of website Done Deal more when the marts closed, and the more vulnerable health wise tried buying and selling online. It did offer an alternative way of doing things, but was still no substitute for face to face.”

Victor says that the UFU also held virtual events such as online farm tours and seminars, in a bid to make the most of the situation. He added: “I am proud of our farmers and our factory workers and all our key workers, and I think that we did get more recognition for the work that we do, and that will last for a lifetime.

“Before all this, I feel that we got bad press at every turn; farmers were blamed for not caring about the environment, but farmers live, work, and breathe it, they don’t want to see anything that will destroy it. It would be very hard to find a farmer who wants to leave the ground to the next generation in worse shape than he got it in.

“We have no control over whether there’s going to be a second wave, but we can all do out bit.

“We have no option but to try and get through it, and we will get through it. We have an industry to be proud of, we have an industry that is needed, and an industry that is vital for human life.”

The UFU man says he believes the pandemic has made people more aware of where their food actually comes from, and a desire to invest in and avail of local produce.

“It’s all very well importing food from the cheapest place in the world when there are no problems, but in a crisis, the local food is still there, and people have said that we need to learn lessons as a society from that.”

‘It did make you change the way you worked and did certain things’

For mixed farmer Jonathan Tuft, lockdown and Coronavirus impacted on his world in a number of ways - some of which were actually quite positive, and some which weren’t.

The father-of-two farms with his father John at Bessvale Farm in Ballinderry.

Predominantly known for their organic and non-organic chicken flock, which they supply to Moy Park, the Tufts also have about 130 sheep, a beef finishing herd, which includes some pedigree Herefords, and grow barley on about 30 acres.

Jonathan says that when lockdown was imposed back in the spring, the Tufts were right in the middle of their cattle buying season.

“Normally, we would have been going to the mart in Enniskillen every Thursday so obviously that all stopped, and for a few weeks there was no buying at all.

“Then the marts started doing online auctions.”

Jonathan admitted that “sitting online all day” trying to buy stock wasn’t without its challenges.

“Buying stock online did work, but I can’t see it being the future because we were caught out a couple of times in the sense that had we been at the ring and seen the animal in real life we wouldn’t have been buying it.”

Jonathan says that at Bessvale, they’re not too isolated and would still have seen deliverymen and so on, even over lockdown, albeit within the limits of social distancing etc.

But he concedes that for some rural farmers, this may not have been the case.

“There are farmers who do live by themselves, and the marts would have been the only places they really saw people.

“So from the point of view of mental health, marts play an important role in the rural community.”

As the father to two young children - Cairns is four and Pippa has just turned two - and husband to a teacher, Jonathan enjoyed the opportunity to spend unexpected family time over lockdown.

And he says that in a way it was also “quite nice” to be able to work on the farm without the usual interruptions from people calling.

“It did make you change the way worked and did certain things.

“For example, if you needed to get something for the farm instead of jumping in the car to go and find it, you would have rang around first - you were trying to cut down social interaction that way as well. So a lot of the work was done over the phone.”

Jonathan harbours both hopes and fears for the future of farming here.

He believes it’s vital that Ulster continues to be self-sustaining to the largest degree possible, producing food that will be bought by communities here.

“We can’t be an importing nation, and I know we’re not 100 per cent self sufficient in any commodity, but we do need to be fairly self-sustainable.”