Within the usual trail of buses, small city cars and cyclists making their way into the city this Monday, the bright-eyed and bushy-tailed commuters amongst you might have noticed something different on your Monday morning rat race. A convoy of tractors, pick-ups and farm jeeps, of which their drivers' usual commute is through milking parlours, cattle sheds or open fields. However, this past Monday many farms fell silent as the countryside of Northern Ireland headed to Stormont in protest.
The incident that led to this has been widely reported and occurred on the 29 June just outside Fivemiletown, where the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs unjustly and brutally shot 51 cattle, many of whom were in calf or had sucklers by their side. The culling took place roughly over a 12-hour period and was described by witnesses as being more akin to a scene from the Wild West than that of a humane dispatch operation carried out by a government department, whose entire duty is supposed to be grounded in safeguarding agriculture.
To make matters worse, this operation was witnessed by multiple members of the local community whose attempts to stop the grotesque cull were met by protocol and determined destruction, all while the owner of the cattle remained unaware of the unfolding atrocity. The cruelty and chaos of this act is highlighted by the calf that was discovered in the following days still alive with an entrance wound to its neck.
It strikes me as important to say that farmers and the rural community do not often protest or ask for much. They are amongst a class of people that get up, go to work and get on with it. Often working all year round with much longer hours than most, regardless of the weather, or the hardship. They produce the food on our plates, they maintain the countryside we all love, they manage the land, the livestock, hedgerows and much of the habitats our wildlife call home.
In the process they help keep large numbers of our population employed and support thousands of businesses. This get up and get on with it, stiff upper lip mentality, is undeniably clear from the extreme circumstances that had to take place before many farmers and the wider countryside community were forced to protest. Because it is not one - albeit abhorrent - display of wrongdoing that has led to this, but the build-up of persistent attacks against the countryside from a government that continually uses it as its political punch bag. It is, ultimately, the straw that broke an already heavily laden camel’s back.
Over recent months, the farming community has seen the Nutrient Action Programme threatening farmers with even more restrictions and red tape, a bovine TB crisis that continues to be mismanaged and ammonia controls used to block or delay farm expansions. In addition, as if farming is not a large enough target, Stormont has also turned its guns on the wider rural population, proposing a 150% increase in firearms licensing fees and yet another Hunting with Dogs Bill, threatening to derail livestock protection, the fallen stock service and vital conservation work.
What was clear to me at Monday’s farmers' protest - and what should strike anyone from outside the countryside community - is not that the farmers simply protested, it's the way that the persistence of ill-informed bureaucracy led to this stand-off. This is not a community that goes looking for confrontation; it is a community that has, time and time again, absorbed policy after policy, restriction after restriction, and got on with their duties despite their mistreatment. The scenes at Stormont were not the beginning of rural anger - they were the visible tip of frustration that has been building quietly in farmyards and across rural Northern Ireland for years.
Rural Northern Ireland has had enough of being treated as the problem. Enough of being the sector that must justify its existence to policymakers who have never had to calve a heifer at three in the morning, watch a herd condemned to slaughter over red tape, or wake up one morning no longer to the sound of curlews trilling. Enough of watching every corner of their way of life - whether it's how they farm, how they protect their livestock, or how they manage the land - be attacked by a government that is supposed to exist for them, not against them.
Monday's protest was about far more than 51 cattle. It was the result of prolonged frustrations, restrictions and decisions made without properly understanding the realities of a working countryside. Behind every tractor at Stormont was a farmer, a family and a community that has quietly kept working despite it all. The tractors may have left Stormont, and farmers may have returned to their fields, but the anger will not simply disappear.
The countryside has spoken. Now it is time for Stormont to listen.
There are only 10 days left to respond to the Hunting with Dogs Bill call for evidence.
The Bill is the most serious legislative threat rural Northern Ireland has faced in a generation and right now, the AERA Committee is asking to hear from you.
This isn't a symbolic consultation. It's the formal evidence-gathering stage that shapes the Committee's report to the Assembly. If rural voices are quiet, the Committee hears only one side of the story. If farmers, gamekeepers, shooters, hunt members, dog owners, land managers and rural businesses respond, the evidential picture changes and so does the pressure on MLAs to think again.
Learn more here or go straight to respond here.