Farmers on overnight grant queue

By Martin Cassidy
BBC Northern Ireland rural affairs correspondent

Farmers gathered on Monday afternoon ahead of their overnight vigil

Hundreds of farmers hoping to get grants to modernise their farms have been queuing overnight outside government offices in towns across Northern Ireland.

The grants are being made available under the EU rural development programme and are designed to help improve animal welfare and farm efficiency.

Farmers queuing outside the Department of Agriculture office in Dungannon said they were hoping to get grants for cow mattresses, creep feeders and computerised livestock identification systems.

Some farmers are hoping to buy robotic floor cleaners as a way of cutting down on the daily drudgery of sweeping the slatted floors of their cattle sheds.

But with just £6m available, many farmers are set to lose out.

'First come, first served'

The funding package will allow only 1,200 farmers to benefit from the maximum grant award, and that will leave many thousands of farming families with nothing.

Some farmers have their eye on robotic floor cleaners

The 'first come, first served' system has been criticised by some farmers who claim it is not equitable.

One farmer from Kilrea said that people who were not able to queue were being put at a significant disadvantage.

"People who are ill or who have not got time to queue are at a major disadvantage," said one farmer.

It's understood the Department of Agriculture will allow a number of postal applications to be picked at random from the many thousands which are expected to flood in, but the bulk of the grants will go to people who make it to the department's regional offices on Tuesday.

Farmers were queuing from Monday morning at Dungannon and large queues had also formed in the afternoon at Coleraine and Ballymena.

Yet more farmers were preparing for a long night outside government offices in Newry, Armagh, Downpatrick, Enniskillen and Omagh.