Letter: Shake-up in the single farm payment scheme is another devastating blow to farming families in Northern Ireland

Another major blow to farm families here will be the shake-up in the single farm payment scheme in 2025/2026.

Over 2,000 farm businesses are expected to lose their farm subsidy entitlements in 2026, as they cannot meet the requirement of actively farming in the years 2020 or 2021.

Many farm families would have inherited entitlements and kept these in the hope that a young son or daughter could have the opportunity of getting into farming when they got older.

Some farmers took a career break in order to make ends meet, but always hoped to get back into it again once it was financially viable.

This decision to remove entitlements is basically robbing these farm families of a future in farming, as without the extra farm subsidy, the farm is unviable.

These families, which made a very modest income from leasing out their land and entitlements, will have no option other than increasing land rent in order to claw back some of their loses.

This will then have a knock on effect on other farmers who rent ground, thus making farming conditions even more difficult.

If these political parties are truly supportive of the local farming community, I hope to see them come out strongly against these proposed changes.

John McSorley, Belfast BT5