Northern Ireland is to receive approximately £4.5million of additional EU support aimed at easing the crisis in its dairy sector and other livestock sectors – and farmers' leaders believe there is a strong case for the NI administration to match that emergency money with funds of its own.

The French agriculture minister Stephane Lefol has already announced he will match fund the French support package and, according to the allied Northern Ireland farm groups, incorporating Farmers For Action and the Northern Ireland Agricultural Producers Association, NI minister Michelle McIlveen must now do the same.

The Ulster farmers claim that the funding argument has already been made for her in the form of the recently launched report on the ‘Health and Social Effects of the Agricultural Downturn in Northern Ireland'.

NI Farm Groups co-ordinator William Taylor said: "We would make the case that it will be difficult for the Minister not to match fund the EU money with the evidence presented and that it would be a great help to Northern Ireland farmers if the dairy industry received the EU and hopefully NI percentage of the money designated to reduce output over the coming months; and the balance of EU and hopefully NI percentage goes to the rest of the livestock sector in the form of support for the pig sector, alongside a soil testing and liming support scheme, which would leave a constructive legacy, therefore fitting EU criteria."