The Health and Safety Executive for Northern Ireland (HSENI) has reiterated advice that farmers should not enter slurry tanks, following the deaths of Ulster rugby player Nevin Spence, aged 22, his brother Graham, aged 30, and 58-year-old father Noel, after being overcome by poisonous fumes from an underground slurry tank at the family farm in Co Down last Saturday.

A woman who survived a farming accident which killed a young rugby star, his father and brother has been released from hospital.

Ulster rugby star Nevin Spence was killed alongside his brother and their father in a farming tragedy which also injured their sister in the North.

NORTHERN Ireland’s cattle farmers are reserving judgement on the beef industry’s plan to use imaging analysis (VIA) machines to classify cattle, and introduce a payment system similar to the south’s QPS, from January 17.

FARM leaders, north and south, have pledged to work together to oppose trade talks that have re-opened between the European Union and the Mercosur group of South American countries.

SOME farmers spent almost two days outside government offices across Northern Ireland to apply for farm modernisation scheme grants

Up to 400 jobs could be under threat if pork producers are not compensated for the contaminated feed scare, one of the North’s largest companies claimed today.

A pork producer revealed today how he lost tens of thousands of pounds because of public confusion over the potential crisis in the North.

Importers bringing live cattle and sheep into the North were urged today to stop after a new strain of the Bluetongue virus spread from the European mainland to England.

FARMERS have called for tighter bluetongue controls as the virus continues to spread in Britain and Wales.

Beef and pig farmers in the North are cutting back production or quitting altogether because of poor farm-gate prices, it was revealed today.

Bluetongue disease was confirmed in the North for the first time today.

Children in the North are being paid less than £3 (€4.29) an hour for labouring in the fields, it was revealed today.

The Irish Farmers' Association and the Ulster Farmers' Union have issued a joint call for an EU ban on Brazilian beef imports.

THERE is no market justification for the current round of price cuts being imposed by the meat processors, livestock leaders from Ireland and Britain claimed at the Royal Show in Wales.

The British government must ensure the end of excessive bureaucracy if it wants the Northern Irish farming industry to survive the outcome of the World Trade Talks, ministers were warned today.

Northern Ireland’s farming industry has seen its total income rise by £173m (€250.2m) over the past year, British government figures revealed today.

A former leader of the Ulster Farmers Union has announced his intention to contest this June’s European elections in the North as an independent candidate.

The British government is to introduce a new system for European farm subsidy payments in Northern Ireland next year, it was annunced today.

Northern Ireland’s hard-pressed farmers are being urged to look to new markets - specifically one worth almost £1.5bn (€2.3bn) a year – supplying Britain's florists.

The Ulster Farmers Union have called for immediate payment of compensation from the British government.

Northern Ireland farmers are increasingly hopeful that they have escaped the foot-and-mouth scourge spreading throughout Britain.

No evidence has been found that the foot-and-mouth outbreak has its source in Northern Ireland, the province’s top veterinary officer said today.