Thousands will be excluded from REPS 3 scheme
It also now appears certain that thousands of moderately intensive farmers, who had hoped to come within the scope of the scheme, will not be eligible whenever REPS 3 is officially approved by the European Commission.
Following the Commission's rejection of Ireland's proposals for implementing REPS 3 here, the Department of Agriculture has sent revised proposals to Brussels, which provide for greater restriction of the scale of farming in REPS.
The proposal for farms with up to 210 kg of nitrogen per hectare to be eligible for REPS has been withdrawn, and the upper limit is 170 kg in the latest proposals.
Following a meeting between IFA and senior officials of the Department of Agriculture, IFA's Munster vice-president, Donal Kelly, said that it is now hoped that the scheme (which was originally expected to come into operation last autumn) will commence from April 1, but that the Department had completely ruled out any backdating of REPS 3 payments to January 1 last.
He also confirmed that efforts by the IFA to smooth the transition for farmers transferring from the existing REPS schemes to the new scheme have been rejected.
"We proposed that farmers transferring to the new scheme should be entitled to change over without the necessity to complete a new farm plan. We are now told that the EU won't accept farmers going into REPS 3 on their old farm plan, and new plans will have to be prepared," he said. "We think this is unnecessary bureaucracy and it should not be necessary for these farmers to go to the expense of producing a new plan, but we have been shot down on that one", he added.
The reduction of the nitrogen limit will exclude many moderately intensive farmers who were hoping to come within the scope of the scheme at the higher level of 210 kg Nitrogen per hectare. There are many dairy farmers who could benefit from the REPS at the higher Nitrogen levels.
