Agriculture Act (Northern Ireland) 1949

Part I of the Act provides for administration and provision for education and instruction, scholarships and undertaking of research; the Minister of Agriculture may from time to time as he may think necessary establish a general agricultural advisory committee to advise him on the administration of this Act, together with such other agricultural advisory committees as the Minister may from time to time think necessary to advise him on such other matters, including agricultural education and the improvement of livestock, as he may think proper. Part I also gives the power to the Ministry to make schemes providing for the payment, on such terms and subject to such conditions as are mentioned in the respective schemes, of grants to occupiers of agricultural land for all or any of the following purposes: (a)the improvement or reclamation of land used or to be used for agricultural purposes including the drainage of such land; (b)the supply of water to agricultural land and agricultural buildings not being dwelling-houses and, where water of suitable purity for domestic use is available, to dwelling-houses occupied as farmhouses or by agricultural workers; (c)the purchase and installation of machines for the generation of electricity for use in agricultural buildings and dwelling-houses on farms; (d)the provision of proper means of access or egress to and from agricultural land, agricultural buildings or turf bogs; (e)the construction or reconditioning of flax dams; or (f)any other purpose which the Ministry is satisfied will increase the fertility of any agricultural land or the productive capacity of any farm or is necessary for the more efficient working of any farm. In the specific the Act allows the Ministry to: make available goods and services to persons farming agricultural land or marketing or distributing agricultural produce for the purpose of promoting efficiency in agriculture or of facilitating the production of food; make schemes for aiding, improving and developing the breeding of horses, cattle, sheep, pigs and other livestock and poultry; propagate or arrange for the propagation by other persons of new species or varieties of any plant or crop;
Part II defines and sets the rules of good husbandry for the purposes of securing that agricultural land is maintained in good condition and farmed in accordance with those rules and of safeguarding in the public interest the supply of food or other agricultural products. Where the Minister is satisfied that any agricultural land is not being maintained in good condition or farmed in accordance with the rules of good husbandry, the Minister may serve an improvement notice in respect of badly farmed land. Regulation 16 provides for appeal against notice and Regulation 17 duration. After one month from the service of an improvement notice or, if an appeal has been made to the county court on or after the confirmation or modification of such notice, the Ministry may, from time to time, while such notice continues in force, give to the person appearing to the Ministry to be the occupier of the land to which the notice relates such written directions as the Ministry may consider necessary to secure that the land to which the improvement notice relates is maintained in good condition and farmed in accordance with the rules of good husbandry. If any person to whom a direction is given does not comply with such directions shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine. The Part also considers emergency directions given by the Minister to secure food production.