Farmers protest outside Tesco in Portadown calling for an end to policies negatively affecting rural livelihoods
Farmers for Action held a protest outside Tesco superstore in Portadown on Thursday evening.
The protest at The Meadows is the third week of protests across NI in what is being called the IHT Phase 2 Campaign across the UK.
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This campaign challenges major supermarkets and Government to end policies and practices that farmers claim are destroying family farms, food security, and rural livelihoods
Sean McAuley, of Farmers For Action, said: “Despite poor weather conditions, flyers were distributed to members of the public as they left the store, and they were well received.
"The star of the protest was 12-year-old young farmer Blake who braved the cold and rain with enthusiasm, carefully keeping the leaflets dry as he supplied them to the team and went the extra mile by handing them directly to Tesco shoppers,” said Mr McAuley.
William Taylor, from Farmers For Action, said: “The whole aim of the Phase 2 IHT Campaign protest across the UK is to facilitate 11 of largest UK food retailers to turn over a new leaf and reply to 4 fair questions, already sent to their CEO’s, with a request to reply by March 1, 2026.
"Those questions in short were - ‘Will you lobby Government to remove IHT?’ Already Tesco and Asda have stated publicly that they will lobby Government for a pause / rethink on IHT,” said Mr Taylor.
"Continuing with the next question for the 11 largest UK food retailers was – ‘Will you lobby Government to put in place a UK-wide Farm Welfare Bill to return family farmers a minimum of the true cost of production inflation linked plus a margin for their produce?”
"Thirdly, will they lobby Government to stop large UK food corporates accelerating climate change with international food swaps,” he said.
"Finally, will they lobby Government to end importing sub-standard food and retailing with sub-standard and misleading labelling information. We will look forward to their responses by March 1,” Mr Taylor said.
Next week Farmers For Action will be protesting at Tesco in Cookstown in Co Tyrone – check out their Facebook page for further information.