Debate contribution: Food Security

Debate contribution by Ms Sian Mulholland on 1 December 2025.

MLA

Ms Sian Mulholland

Party at the time

Alliance Party

Date

1 December 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Food Security

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5269574

Read the official Assembly record

Text

We are a region with a proud agricultural heritage, and I have such a deep respect for our farmers, who work every day in every season to feed the rest of us and the countries further afield where our food is exported. They deserve honesty, and the motion does not provide that. It reads like another attempt to undo the consequences of a future that the proposers helped to create. Food production is already recognised as a strategic asset through the food strategy framework, which links food to health, education, climate, sustainability and economic growth. The truth is that there are sectors in our agri-food industry that, without the Windsor framework, would simply collapse. If anything has held our agriculture back, it has been Brexit and bad trade deals that the DUP actively welcomed. The motion takes a real concern — food security — and uses it as a vehicle to roll back on climate ambition and to reopen political arguments about the Windsor framework, rather than genuinely addressing how we ensure that people here access good food in the years ahead. Scrapping the protocol would not be a solution but an act of self-harm. As agri-food leaders have said, Brexit created major frictions and challenges, most of which were resolved by the protocol, which now offers new opportunities. Another stakeholder put it plainly when I spoke to them, saying that their members benefit from unfettered trade to GB and onwards to the EU, and they want those benefits to be protected. It is not just trade: the DUP backed the UK Government's migration White Paper, despite years of warnings that the agri-food sector, including mushroom growers, need that access to labour. It is absolutely critical. It is deeply hypocritical to claim to be defending farmers whilst supporting policies that leave farms without workers on a seasonal basis. The architects of Brexit are now protesting the barriers that they helped to build. From my Communities perspective, I also put on record that, while we talk about food security from the point of view of production, it is also about the depth of poverty in this country. Food security is not only about what we produce but what people can afford to put on their plates. There are Ministers in the Executive from the DUP who have the power to ease food security more effectively than any change to climate targets or legislation. The Minister for Communities holds the pen on the anti-poverty strategy, and the Education Minister holds major responsibility for food security through free school meals and holiday hunger provision. Let us talk about food security, but let us talk about it honestly. It will not be secured by lowering our climate ambition, and it will not be secured by ripping up trade agreements. That is why I support the Minister's doing whatever he can to enable farmers to invest in technology and practices that future-proof agriculture but also future-proof our environment, rather than rolling back on our environmental ambition. Lowering emissions targets would undermine Northern Ireland's climate commitments and our global reputation. Progress has to be fair and evidence-based and to avoid carbon leakage. The Sinn Féin amendment reflects a more balanced approach, and we will support it. Ensuring food security and sustainability can go hand in hand. That is the reality, and that is why we will oppose the unamended motion and support the amendment. The motion looks at food security in the rear-view mirror, when what this region needs more than anything is a vision for the future. The Minister has clearly set out a vision, but he needs the support of all his Executive colleagues to make that vision a reality.

616 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 14:06 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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