Record investment in rural protection

A record €3bn has today been pledged towards protecting the rural landscape and improving water quality.

Up to 70,000 farmers are expected to benefit from the Rural Environment Protection Scheme (REPS), which also provides funding towards maintaining and planting hedgerows, growing crops to provide food for wild birds, increasing biodiversity, and preserving traditional breeds of animals.

REPS 4, launched by Minister for Agriculture Mary Coughlan, encouraged farmers to enhance the environment through a range of measures, including a reduction in the use of fertilisers and pesticides.

“For generations, farmers and farm families have been the keepers of Ireland’s rural landscape and rural environment,” Ms Coughlan said.

“Modern farmers are very conscious of their responsibility for this heritage and they want to maintain it and pass it on to future generations.

“REPS helps them to do this.

“While the payments are made directly to farmers, the benefits are for society as a whole.”

The scheme, co-funded by the EU and the Irish taxpayer, provides for REPS over the next seven, averaging at more than €400m.

It was approved at the EU’s Rural Development Committee on July 24 as part of Ireland’s Rural Development Programme and negotiated by the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) in the Partnership Agreement last October.

IFA President Padraig Walshe said the scheme is a vital support to farmers.

However, he raised concerns that it was launched without a satisfactory outcome for farmers who have designated SAC (Special Areas of Conservation) land, where the designated land reduces the amount of land eligible for basic REPS payments.

“Despite two attempts to resolve this matter with the Department of Agriculture in recent weeks it is disappointing that Minister Coughlan has failed to come up with a satisfactory resolution to the issue,” he said.

Ms Coughlan said the Government’s commitment was clearly evident in the provision of 1.6 billion euro in national funding – up by €850m - from the national allocation in 2000-2006.

In line with the social partnership agreement, Towards 2016, all payment rates, including those for Natura 2000 designated land, were increased by 17% compared to REPS 3.

This means the average REPS farmer will get 7,220 euro a year in REPS 4, while a farmer with 55 hectares will qualify for over €10,000.

“I am particularly pleased that the European Commission was able to accept my proposals for a mixed grazing measure which will benefit sheep farmers,” added Ms Coughlan.

“I had also been anxious to extend REPS to the more intensive farming sectors, including dairying, and I am very happy that this will now be possible under REPS 4.”

REPS was first introduced in 1994. When REPS 3, the last version of the Scheme, closed to new entrants in December 2006 there were over 59,000 farmers taking part.