Solution in sight on machinery?

The Ulster Farmers Union (UFU) and the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), the two largest business representative bodies in Northern Ireland, have been working together to lobby for the process to be greatly simplified for their many members who have been affected. And now they are urging local farmers and dealers to engage in a new Defra survey aimed at developing a third strand that has the potential to become the route of choice for all movements of machinery, whether likely to remain in NI or pass through.

For more than two decades, used agricultural and forestry machinery moving from Great Britain (GB) to Northern Ireland has needed to be clean, free from soil, potential pests and diseases. This need still exists. However, since Brexit, a number of additional requirements have evolved which have caused machinery dealers and farmers a range of difficulties.

Speaking about the issue, UFU President, David Brown said: “The Government and the EU listened to the UFU and FSB, recognised the issue, and sought to address it in the Windsor Framework where they stated that they would ‘remove needless certification requirements for used agricultural and forestry machinery, with the only requirement now being a single, self-applied label to indicate the machinery will not move into the EU.’

“At first sight, that looked like a good solution and, in parallel, machinery that was likely to move into the Republic could travel under a Phyto certificate, but our members were telling us that the process for getting these documents was slow, costly and unpredictable, and was creating many concerns for farmers and dealers.

“Worse, it soon transpired that machinery brought into Northern Ireland under that ‘single, self-applied label’ – the NI Plant Health Label or ‘NIPHL’ – would have to remain here in perpetuity and could never move south of the Border, meaning some machinery would be ‘marooned’ here, unable to get certification to move.”

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That was clearly not the intention of the ‘fix’ that had been developed, so farmers and dealers once again contacted the UFU and FSB, and the lobbying began again. In response, DEFRA has now developed a third strand that has potential to become the route of choice for all movements, whether likely to remain in NI or pass through and they are keen to find out if farmers and dealers support that proposal.

This path would see dealers, auctioneers, or hauliers – able to register as ‘authorised person’, inspecting machinery and confirming it meets the standards required for a Phyto.

This confirmation would then be submitted to APHA who would produce a certificate in pdf format – a process likely to take no more than five hours. Defra is still designing the system, so they have issued a very short survey that takes just a few minutes to complete to understand if the new process would meet the majority of needs of farmers and dealers.

Speaking about the moves, Roger Pollen, Head of FSB NI said: “We are encouraging a large response to the survey so that Defra see the industry’s demand for the most flexible and supportive service to underpin this vital trade in machinery from GB to Northern Ireland.

"Both the UFU and FSB are encouraging their members to complete the survey before the closing date of 5 April so as to maintain momentum to solve this problem.”

The survey can be found at https://forms.office.com/e/LYXV9pH3ZR