The Department of Agriculture in the North has defended its decision to stand-down air support providing emergency relief to stricken farmers.

A British Royal Air Force Chinook helicopter has started dropping feed to thousands of farm animals stranded in huge snow drifts in the North as the agriculture crisis triggered by blizzards deepened.

MIXED results for automated beef carcass grading in Ireland over the last three years have not put British farmers off.

Five live crabs have been found inside a Chinese woman’s suitcase at Belfast International Airport.

Sixty planners are to move to Land and Property Services in the North, it was revealed today.

BRUCELLOSIS in cattle has recently re-emerged in the Keady area of Co Armagh, close to the Monaghan border.

IF YOU get swine flu, stay away from your pigs, farmers have been advised.

PIGS in Northern Ireland have contracted the human form of swine flu, it has been confirmed.

A herd of pigs in the North has tested positive for swine flu.

A HIGH-POWERED political delegation from Poland is on a fact-finding mission to east Cork to see how an EU-backed rural investment programme has created jobs and industry.

The North would have to slash its spending if the Ulster Unionists’ new electoral partners were in power, it was warned today.

AGRICULTURE Minister Brendan Smith has continued to resist intense pressure to extend the December 31 deadline for completion of the Farm Waste Management Scheme.

THE overall winner of the JFC Innovation Award for Rural Business is Ralph Haslam of Mossfield Organic Farm, Co Offaly.

European conservation experts will today address an international summit on farming in the Burren area.

A PASSING wild bird may have been the source of the new cases of the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu found in three dead swans in Dorset, England.

A SECOND confirmed case of foot and mouth disease in Britain yesterday was described by Agriculture Minister Mary Coughlan as “disappointing but not surprising”.

The Minister for Agriculture has described the latest foot-and-mouth outbreak in Surrey as 'disappointing but not surprising'.

FARM leaders from north and south yesterday reiterated the importance of strict biosecurity measures as part of the all-island approach to keeping foot and mouth disease out of Ireland and avoiding an economic disaster.

The North's power-sharing executive will today hold a special Cabinet meeting to consider their response to the foot-and-mouth outbreak in Surrey, England.

Agriculture officials in Northern Ireland tonight moved decisively to close ports to all animal movement from Britain to the North following an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in Surrey.

SAFETY measures introduced by Agriculture and Food Minister Mary Coughlan nearly two weeks ago following an outbreak of a mild form of avian flu on a farm in Wales have been lifted.

Thieves have stolen 55 computers from Northern civil servants during a nine-year crime spree, it emerged today.

Officials from the Department of Agriculture met this morning to review the latest outbreak of bird flu in the UK.

THE first case of swamp fever has been confirmed in Northern Ireland and a further outbreak detected in the Republic.

TESTS for bird flu on six dead swans in the North have proved negative.

Tests for bird flu on six dead swans in Northern Ireland have proved negative, it was announced tonight.

A SWAN which died of bird flu has tested positive for the deadly H5N1 strain of the virus, the Scottish Executive confirmed yesterday.

Six dead swans were today reported to authorities in the North in the wake of a confirmed case of bird flu in Scotland.

Striking civil servants will attempt to hit the payment of grants and subsidies to Northern Ireland’s thousands of farmers when they extend industrial action next week, it was announced today.

Striking civil servants will attempt to hit the payment of grants and subsidies to Northern Ireland’s thousands of farmers when they extend industrial action next week, it was announced today.

A public service union tonight announced an intensification of its civil service strike action in Northern Ireland in a dispute over pay.

SALES in independent garden centres have risen to €149 million for the year ending March 2003 — an increase of 9% on the previous year.

Belfast company BIC Systems has completed a pilot project to simulate the provision of secure online services to a sample of the farming community in Northern Ireland for the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development. (DARD).

Agriculture Minister Brid Rodgers’ officials were today accused of putting Northern Ireland’s entire farming industry at risk because of a lack of information about any contingency plans to deal with future outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease.

Remaining restrictions on hunting with hounds in Northern Ireland were relaxed today.

Commercial sheep sales will resume in theNorth under moves announced by Stormont Agriculture Minister Brid Rodgers today.