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00:00 We're here at the Young Farmers Stand at the Balmoral Show and I'm speaking to two
00:03 officers with the organisation. Can you just introduce yourselves there please?
00:07 I'm Ian Walker, I'm a board member at the YMCA and past chair of the Agri and Rural Affairs Committee.
00:13 My name's Richard Beattie, I'm current president of Young Farmers Clubs of Ulster and past chair
00:20 of our Agri, Environment and Rural Affairs Committee as well.
00:22 And gentlemen, we're discussing here the pressures on young farmers, how difficult it is for young
00:28 farmers to make a living. Increasingly they have to work off the farm in order to maintain a
00:34 standard of living. Is this a common problem you're seeing?
00:37 Yes, so firstly from our own experience at home, I am full-time on the family dairy,
00:42 beef and sheep farm but I have younger siblings who have had to take part-time jobs off-farm
00:49 to make sure that everybody can make an income from this.
00:53 So one thing you would like to see done is banks being more sympathetic to young farmers who want
00:57 to buy land to develop their farm?
00:58 Yes, it's an ongoing problem in Northern Ireland where there's a great interest for young farmers
01:05 to come into the industry but they just can't get the capital gathered up to buy land or
01:11 buy the machinery that it needs.
01:12 Okay, and you've got 190 dairy cattle on the farm but it's not really enough to sustain
01:19 all the brothers, the three brothers that want to farm. But for yourself one key thing would be to
01:26 increase consumer prices. We're not willing to pay enough for quality farm food is what you're saying?
01:31 Yes, well it's really more long-term sustainability. At current levels,
01:35 the prices for farmers producing commodities are below cost of production. So this isn't
01:41 sustainable and potentially you have that risk of farmers acing the system and then you have
01:46 potentially a lot higher food prices for consumers. So it's really about fairness
01:52 throughout the supply chain. Yes, for conscious people it costs a living price. We don't want
01:56 people paying over for food but in terms of long-term sustainability, the producer needs a
02:01 fair price. Consumer and retailer to everybody has a secure supply chain.