Northern Ireland’s farmers are faced with major losses, including the dumping of millions of litres of milk, unless a deal can be reached between the UK and the European Union over the supply of veterinary medicines.
Under the Windsor Framework deal between London and Brussels, veterinary medicines can continue to be governed by UK regulations until December 31st, 2025, but Brussels’ rules will come into force immediately thereafter.
However, farmers and the agriculture industry warn that major losses will be caused unless a deal is reached that will allow UK regulations to continue, and no political negotiations to resolve the crisis have yet begun.
A failure to reach a deal would be “unforgivable”, Lord Michael Jay, chairman of the House of Lords’ subcommittee on the Windsor Framework, said in advance of the publication of a report on the veterinary problems.
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“Veterinary medicines were virtually left out of the Windsor talks,” he said, warning that the House of Lords’ inquiry was struck by “the scale of the problem” and the time left to solve a bureaucratically complicated issue.
The full application of Brussels rules over UK ones from January 1st, 2026, may “seriously restrict” the range of veterinary medicines that are available to Northern Ireland’s farmers and threaten the availability of some products.
The House of Lords, which took evidence from people across Northern Ireland, said it had heard “serious concerns” about the threats to public health that could exist unless a compromise was reached, noting especially the restrictions facing importation of the botulism vaccine.
A third of Northern Ireland’s annual 2.5 billion litres of milk is shipped south of the Border, but Stormont’s Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) must certify that it meets European Union standards, which it will not be able to do unless a medicines deal is agreed.
Denise Walsh of Lakeland Dairies warned the subcommittee that milk would have to be dumped and cows culled unless DAERA vets could sign off the milk: “We are talking about farmers having to leave their farms,” she said.
Brussels rules require that the registered address of the “marketing authorisation holder” must be in the EU or in Northern Ireland, but 85 per cent of the veterinary products used in Northern Ireland are registered to a British address, and would no longer be legal to be used there after January 1st, 2026.
Meanwhile, all-Ireland animal health would be quickly affected, the Ulster Farmers’ Union warned: “The food supply chain on the island of Ireland will be non-existent if a full suite of veterinary medicines is not available.”
Lord Jay said: “We need to preserve our existing supply lines, and that means coming to a negotiated agreement with the EU that will allow the present arrangements to continue more or less as is, because if not, it’s the farmers who are going to suffer.”
Twenty months remain to reach an agreement, but any agreement must be signed off by politicians and much of this year will be consumed by the British elections, the European Parliament contest and the creation of a new European Commission.
“This is far too complicated for politicians to be involving themselves in, but the signing off is going to have to be done by politicians,” said Lord Jay, who said it was unclear why the issue had not been progressed to date.
An agreement that gives primacy to European over UK regulation would cause problems, too, he warned, as some British-based suppliers would be likely to decide that the NI market was “not worth the candle” of complying with complicated regulations, he said.
The best way to ensure that current trade patterns, including those with the Republic, continued without interruption was “to allow the present arrangements in some way or another to continue, that that is what everybody seems to be telling us”, he added.
