Rural Development Programme needs work to ensure suitability for farming and environment schemes

Significant work is required to transform the proposed Rural Development Programme framework into schemes suitable for farming and the environment, the Teagasc agri-environment conference has been told in Tullamore, Co Offaly.

Alan Matthews, Professor Emeritus of European Agricultural Policy in Trinity College, Dublin, pointed out that in the design of a new agri-environment scheme, payments could be made to groups of farmers or land managers to achieve landscape-level benefits.

The conference was told the greening measures, being introduced as part of reformed Common Agricultural Policy, added to cross compliance, will form the baseline for any new agri-environment measures.