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Farming Today: 17/01/23 Northern Ireland border posts, Drone sprayer, Liquid Fertiliser

17/01/23 Northern Ireland border posts, Drone sprayer, Liquid Fertiliser

BBC Radio 4 - Farming Today, 17/01/23 Northern Ireland border posts, Drone sprayer, Liquid Fertiliser

Norther Ireland border control posts, spraying by drone and liquid fertilisers.

UK government takes over the building of control posts at ports in Northern Ireland.
First licence to spray agricultural chemicals using a drone. Imports of liquid fertiliser.

The UK government is taking over the building of control posts at Northern Irish ports. The Northern Ireland department of agriculture, or DAERA, was to be in charge of both building the posts and carrying out inspections of agri-food products going from Britain to Northern Ireland under the protocol set up as part of Brexit. However UK ministers say as there is no functioning NI government, DEFRA will now take over. 

Auto Spray Systems has been granted the UK's first license to spray agricultural chemicals using a drone. The company says getting the paperwork sorted has been much easier since the release the Government's Drone Ambition Statement last year which claimed the sector could be worth £45 billion to the UK economy by 2030. The firm's teamed up with Harper Adams University to set up a course to train operators to use it in agriculture.

All week Farming Today is looking at fertiliser. Production in Europe dropped 70% last year, partly due the rise in the cost of gas, the war in Ukraine and sanctions against Russia. The CF manufacturing plant in Cheshire, which produced fertiliser pellets, has closed and the CF plant in Billingham is not running at the moment. This has taken 600 000 tonnes of production out of a 2.2 million tonne a year market, so the UK is having to look to global supplies.  About two thirds of farmers use fertiliser pellets, but the use of liquids is growing. Brineflow imports liquid fertiliser and is spending tens of millions of pounds setting up a new import facility in Sunderland. It already runs an operation in Great Yarmouth, importing liquid fertilizer.

Presenter = Anna Hill
Producer = Rebecca Rooney

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17/01/23 Northern Ireland border posts, Drone sprayer, Liquid Fertiliser

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