REPS not for income support

REPS was never intended to be purely an income support like the single payment or the disadvantaged areas schemes, said Justice Minister Dermot Ahern last week.

He said EU regulations are quite explicit in providing that agri-environmental schemes like REPS can only compensate farmers for income foregone and additional costs incurred through more environmentally friendly farming.

Minister Ahern revealed that REPS 4 contracts will run to the end of 2015 for farmers with contracts ending after January 31 next, who had submitted new applications by July 9.

This year, REPS payments amounting to €330 million will issue to 63,000 participants. Next year, the numbers will be around 54,000.

Minister Ahern indicated that priority will be given to farmers completing their REPS 3 contracts, in a new agri-environment measure which will be available no later than 2010.

The Government has decided to allocate all the modulation funds secured for Ireland in the CAP health check, as well as European economic recovery plan and exchequer funding, to the new agri-environment measure. Its total funding will not be determined until later this year. The Government will have to provide an amount from national funds equivalent to one third of what is available from the EU, to draw down the modulated funds.

An outline of the new measure was included in proposals sent to the EU last week as amendments to the rural development programme.

It will be quite different from REPS, involving individual measures rather than the existing “whole farm” approach. “The compliance costs will be considerably lower than those associated with REPS,” said Minister Ahern. It will have the aim of producing tangible environmental benefits.