Farmers For Action have called on Chancellor Sunak to follow through the logic of his economic recovery package by guaranteeing sustainable prices for primary producers.

FFA welcomed the moves that the Chancellor had already made, and noted that the UK government's Covid-19 support packages had been likened to the 'New Deal' introduced by President Roosevelt to help the United States out of the Great Depression of the 1930s, which centred on creating mass employment with giant infrastructure projects and job creation across the nation.

But Roosevelt's project ran for almost two years and wasn’t delivering, causing the US Government to re-examine the strategy. FFA noted that it took Lurgan man AE Russell, a noted expert on agricultural affairs and nation-building, to tell Roosevelt that his problem was he hadn’t put money in farmers pockets.

FFA's Northern Irish organiser William Taylor said: "The current situation in the UK is no different and Northern Ireland has the opportunity to prove that legislation on farm gate prices, an idea that originally came from Roosevelt's experience, and now being discussed at high levels in Stormont, needs everyone to encourage their politicians to support its progress.

"The Bill is written, completed and if enacted would deliver a minimum of the cost of production inflation linked plus a margin at the farm gate across the staples," explained Mr Taylor. "The Bill makes perfect sense in every way and in addition has a climate change mitigation clause – its time has come. "

Mr Taylor claimed that 'every politician' knew that the NI agrifood industry deserved the credit for pulling the province out of the banking crisis, and like all farmers across the British Isles had kept people fed despite Covid-19.

"Rural Northern Ireland can do no more, nor yet continue without family farmers getting properly paid for what they produce," he said. "If further proof of the requirement for the Legislation Bill were needed then look no further than the recent reports that Tesco was set to try and enforce yet another round of price cuts on its suppliers whilst attempting to pay its shortly to retire CEO £6.5million.

"The NI Bill for Legislation on farm gate prices is the only show in town to deliver fairness at the farm gate against growing corporate food juggernauts like Tesco – do please lift the phone, text or email encouragement to your local MLA to support the Bill and help NI to flourish while creating 10-20,000 new jobs on the way. At the same time you will be helping your fellow family farmers across these islands with the resulting domino affect!"