BBC News NI agriculture and environment correspondent<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Despite prices for commodities like beef and milk remaining high, it all makes for a less-than-positive backdrop to a highlight in the farming calendar.<\/p>\n For Cormac McKervey, head of agriculture at Ulster Bank, the show has a role to play in connecting farmers with the public they serve.<\/p>\n “It lets them understand and know that what we’re doing is good, it’s wholesome, it’s natural food.”<\/p>\n But agriculture is still Northern Ireland’s largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions.<\/p>\n And reducing that is a challenge that Mr McKervey says is on the minds of farmers.<\/p>\n “Farming does produce a lot of carbon emissions, but equally, farming has some fantastic solutions in terms of absorbing that carbon into the soil,” he said.<\/p>\n “And I think the conversation has widened, that it’s not just purely carbon anymore, it’s that wider piece about sustainability on the farm, both economically and environmentally.<\/p>\n “Farmers are getting into that and the supply chain is driving it.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n William Irvine, president of the Ulster Farmers’ Union, knows his members will have a lot to discuss when the Union’s tent opens for tea and scones on Wednesday.<\/p>\n “I could almost guarantee that the majority of questions that we will get will be the inheritance tax piece, the TB piece, closely followed I would say by the Nutrients Action Programme consultation that’s just been announced in recent days,” Mr Irvine said.<\/p>\n “It feels like there is a tsunami coming at us around all of these issues.”<\/p>\n Sean McAuley has felt the impact of part of that tsunami.<\/p>\n After 40 years in farming, he had his first experience of bovine TB in 2023-24.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n “It was a shock to the system. I wasn’t that well at the time; I was waiting to go into hospital,” Mr McAuley said. <\/p>\n “I can fully relate now to the pressures it puts farmers and their families under because you see your business disappearing.”<\/p>\n The Farmers for Action spokesperson is adamant that no strategy will tackle the problem until there is a wildlife intervention – a badger cull, by another name.<\/p>\n But the courts have quashed the previous minister’s order for a cull<\/a>.<\/p>\n With the bill for the TB programme expected to reach \u00a360m this year, the TB Partnership Steering Group has published a blueprint for eradication.<\/a><\/p>\n It said it will “bring forward proposals for effective, evidence-based wildlife interventions and TBPSG views for consideration by [the] minister”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n![\"BBC](\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/480\/cpsprodpb\/0a8f\/live\/81598b30-2f25-11f0-9869-cde5df3646f9.jpg.webp\")
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<\/div>\n<\/div>\nBovine TB<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
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