Minister seeks submissions on agri-environmental scheme

INTERESTED parties were have been invited by Agriculture, Fisheries and Food Minister Brendan Smith to make submissions aboutthe detailed contents ofa new agri-environmental scheme which will be introduced in 2010.

Mr Smith said funding for the new scheme will come from the additional modulation funds, which he ensured would stay with Irish farmers in the recent negotiations on the CAP ‘Health Check’, and from the exchequer.

An outline of the scheme has already been sent to the European Commission as part of a set of proposals for an amended Rural Development Programme. This followed an earlier consultation exercise about the use of the modulation funds.