Six local organisations - Anaka Women’s Collective, Gairdín an Phobail, Grow NI, Larder>East, PPR and Source Grow - jointly submitted evidence to the Right to Food commission on the particular nature of food insecurity in this heavily agricultural region.

The paper set out how, given the “structural tilt of NI agriculture towards livestock-based production systems” (2026 NI Food and Drink Association study), the bulk of our extensive farmed land goes to produce eggs, milk, beef / veal and poultry for export to the rest of the UK and Ireland. (NISRA data indicates that only about 4.5% of NI farmland was used to grow crops in 2025 –much of it, cereals to feed that livestock).

Over one third NI residents live in rural areas; while some may have access to affordable fresh local produce, recent academic research found many others “face greater disadvantage in obtaining nutritionally adequate diets” even than people in cities, with widespread “pockets of risk” of food insecurity.

In the absence of adequate official data, uptake at food banks and of free school meals has become a stand-in indicator of the level of hunger across the north. Save the Children NI noted that, unlike elsewhere in the UK,

 the burden on families in Northern Ireland is higher than the headline data because we don’t have universal early years childcare, universal free school meals and rents have rocketed 50% in some areas in the last 6 years.

Addressing poverty has not been a government priority post-peace; it took legal challenges in 2015 and 2025 before the NI Executive issued the anti-poverty strategy mandated by the 1998 NI Act. (That strategy was swiftly declared unfit for purpose by a host of civil society groups, including Larder>East and PPR; the Executive has yet to respond).

Evidence gathered by the organisations in the course of their work indicates that certain groups are at particular risk of food insecurity, including people living in areas of multiple deprivation; people seeking international protection; homeless families placed by NIHE in emergency accommodation in hotels; and people living with disabilities.

The organisations also identified responses that are having an impact in the north, including a thriving grassroots network of community groups, communal gardens and other community-based initiatives working on food and land justice.

Finally the organisations made content recommendations for an eventual law on the right to food in the UK, including targeted support to at-risk groups; access to public land for growing; practical growing experience in school curricula; seed sovereignty initiatives; and more.

The organisations stressed that the persistence of food poverty in this overwhelmingly agricultural region is rooted in the longstanding prioritisation of export-driven profit over local needs. Rectifying these glaring imbalances will require targeted region-wide and grassroots measures.  

The full submission can be found here.