DUP-run department won’t say if muddy boots now banned from Northern Ireland

The Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA), which had been headed by Edwin Poots until his replacement as minister on Monday night by DUP colleague Gordon Lyons, has been enforcing a ban on British soil coming to Northern Ireland since January 1.

Even tiny quantities of soil are now banned, making it illegal to import bare root plants which carry a few particles of soil – even though it remains legal to import soil from thousands of miles away in the outer reaches of the EU, or to bring in plants from GB grown in environmentally-damaging peat.

But the full implications of the soil ban remain unclear.

Yesterday the News Letter revealed that a new ‘wash certificate’ is now required to bring in agricultural machinery from GB, certifying that it was been washed to an exacting standard and is free of soil.

Colin Holmes, who has four decades of experience as a specialist haulier handling second-hand agricultural machinery, told the News Letter that for years there had been a requirement to wash farm equipment before bringing it into Northern Ireland.

However, he said that the new process was far more stringent and was already leading to some GB companies increasing their prices by £200 or refusing to sell to NI at all.

Writing in the News Letter yesterday, one of Mr Lyons’ most senior officials, chief vet Robert Huey, warned that “we are increasing our enforcement” and “we have started to be firmer in our approach”.

Just hours after that warning of tougher enforcement was submitted to the News Letter, the department temporarily withdrew its staff from running the new border posts because of threats from unspecified individuals.

However, it remains unclear precisely how strict the new enforcement will be.

The News Letter asked DAERA a series of questions on Monday, including whether it is now illegal to bring a pair of muddy boots from GB to Northern Ireland and whether the DUP minister would be suspending the checks.

The department did not respond. When asked again yesterday, again there was no response.

An experienced figure at a major importer of second-hand agricultural machinery, who asked not to be identified, said that he did not see why the new process was necessary but said that so far his company has not had to complete a wash certificate.

He said that they always washed their machinery to a very high standard and so he expected it would be “no big difficulty for us”. He said that it was the responsibility of the customer who was selling the machinery to ensure that it was adequately cleaned and customs declarations were made in advance.

He said that some GB sellers either “don’t understand or don’t want to understand” the process and want his company to complete the process, which it will not do.

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