Ulster Farmers’ Union Rural Affairs Chair Freda Magill, Policy Director Wesley Aston and Policy Officer David McConaghy have attended a briefing session with the Northern Ireland Assembly’s Agriculture Committee on the topic of rural poverty and social isolation. Speaking after the meeting Freda Magill said: “The briefing with the NI Assembly’s Agriculture Committee was an opportunity for us to put forward the wider issues that are impacting on rural families. The briefing was organised as part of a review that the Committee are carrying out on DARD’s ‘Tackling Rural Poverty and Social Isolation’ framework, which has seen initiatives such as Rural Support, the Farm Family Health Checks and Maximising Access in Rural Areas take shape and set to work on tackling social problems in rural Northern Ireland.
"What has been achieved so far is wonderful but in order to overcome some of the many negative wider issues families living in rural areas are facing we need to see progress on two key things. Firstly, other Departments need to step up to the plate and honour the commitments they made in the NI Executive supported Rural White Paper Action Plan, it is entirely unreasonable for DARD to be expected to carry the burden for administering this alone. Secondly, there needs to be targeted work based on sound evidence. The programmes which we have, have been very successful in their aim but they have uncovered deeper issues that need to be tackled head-on. For example, the UFU Rural Affairs Committee has been working with Rural Support on the issue of illiteracy in rural areas but we keep hitting a brick wall as we don’t know the details of the problem. However, if research was to be carried out into the extent of this problem we could look at tackling it much more effectively.”
The UFU also took the opportunity to highlight specific issues which need to be looked at in rural areas. These included: older people, lone workers, inequalities, centralisation, vulnerability and financial pressures. Commenting on this Freda added: “It is very important to know the key problems we need to solve – almost everyone who lives in a rural area will be able to identify with at least one of the issues we brought to the Committee and the reception we received from the elected representatives showed that they too recognise the existence and scope of these problems. I hope that we will be able to engage further with them and with others in tackling some of the issues being faced from rural poverty and social isolation.”
Freda concluded: “The UFU would also like to encourage those from the rural and farming community to get involved in groups that can help influence what happens in their local area. The Union believes that farm family representation on new council Local Action Groups (LAGs) and community planning groups should ensure that the views and needs of farming families are considered and that the challenges, desires and needs of their area are met. In addition, by joining your local Policing and Community Safety Partnership (PCSP) the farming community will be able to work closely with the Police so that their concerns on the issue of rural crime are heard and that it is tackled effectively. If we don’t get involved in local initiatives then there is no point in complaining at a later stage that we are unhappy with the outcomes.”
