Huge amount of applications doomed REPS scheme
Faced by the highest-ever spending on REPS, Agriculture Minister Brendan Smith suspended it in order to keep within its budgetary allocation over the coming years.
For the first time, more intensive farmers were free to join the current REPS 4, introduced two years ago.
They had been excluded previously, because Ireland couldn’t go to the EU for approval for a REPS plan in breach of the nitrates directive livestock limit of 170kg/ha of nitrogen.
Ireland’s national nitrates action programme wasn’t given statutory effect by the EU until 2006 – 16 years after the EU introduced the directive, but this breakthrough finally allowed REPS 4 to accommodate all farmers.
The January 1, 2009 requirement for all farmers, in REPS or not, to have sufficient storage for slurry and farmyard manure, also opened REPS up to many farmers who previously didn’t have the slurry storage necessary for REPS compliance.
However, eREPS, the online system which REPS planners use to prepare applications and plans, was not properly operational for several months.
And unlike previous schemes, REPS 4 was only open to applications up to the date the Single Farm Payment scheme closed in 2008.
So, relatively few farmers succeeded in joining REPS in 2008. Hence the flood of 17,000 successful applications in 2009.
The other major change was that REPS 4 is paid 55% by the EU and 45% by the Irish Exchequer. The previous schemes were mainly funded by the EU, 75% to 25%.
Although now closed for new applicants in Ireland, REPS will run to 2013, when the EU’s governing regulation will expire.
REPS was introduced by the EU in 1992 to change farming practices which were damaging the environment.
The first and second REPS in Ireland& were designed to stem our rapid loss of biodiversity in the countryside.
REPS 3 coincided with the single payment scheme, which placed certain environmental protection obligations on farmers.
Because of this, REPS was altered, and participating farmers had to take a more active role in improving, rather than simply retaining habitats and the environment.
REPS is part of the Irish government’s overall strategy on the environment, co-ordinated with our versions of the EU’s birds, water framework and habitat directives.
For example, it includes restrictions on spreading fertiliser and slurry in or around water courses.
REPS is a critical support in designated special areas of conservation, special protection areas and natural heritage areas.
In REPS 4, work will be undertaken throughout Ireland on more than 10,000 kilometres of new and rejuvenated native hedgerow, the largest planting in 200 years.
Over one million individual native broadleaved trees will be planted.
Other new habitats being created include LINNET crops for wildlife, field margins, woodland, and traditional orchards.
Farmed grassland areas are being managed to benefit biodiversity through measures such as species-rich grassland, traditional hay meadows, traditional grazing and mixed grazing.
A very popular option among the 62,000 REPS farmers is the erection of bird and bat boxes.
Over 3,000 km of stone walls in the west are being maintained. Archaeological sites and traditional farm buildings are also preserved on REPS farms.
