Burren farmers to get €300,000 for growing flowers

PAYMENTS TOTALLING almost €300,000 have been approved for Burren farmers for producing rare and wild Burren flowers as part of a Government scheme.

Michael Davoren, a participating farmer in the Burren Farming for Conservation Programme, said yesterday he was confident “that the cacophony of colour will be even louder in the Burren this year as a result of the programme”.

Mr Davoren said “ancient farming practices in a modern day context” were central to the growing of the species-rich grassland that contains the flowers.

“The green shoots of recovery are literally there to see for all who now visit the Burren. A view of a number of participating farms located near Lemenagh Castle shows this,” he said.

The three-year programme began last year and programme director Dr Brendan Dunford said yesterday that €293,671 has been approved for the 117 participating farmers who are producing “species-rich grassland”.

Dr Dunford said that in the first year of the scheme, €660,000 has been approved for farmers.

The monies approved for farmers ranged from €1,067 to €14,077.

The €3 million programme is jointly funded by the Department of the Environment and the Department of Agriculture and Dr Dunford said the programme “is at the forefront of ‘farming for conservation’ in Europe”.

“This is by far the most positive development with regard to the heritage of the Burren in many, many years and with the right support, it can make a huge difference to the future of this amazing place,” he said.

Chairman of Burren IFA Michael Davoren said that the programme was “ highly innovative”.

“The farmers are producing the species rich grassland, which the State then retails to the tourist industry and the tourists then come to see the flowers. It is part of the evolution of farming in the Burren,” he said.

Dr Dunford said he was happy with how the project was progressing.

“We have developed a pioneering farm plan template, a totally innovative system of payment,” he said. “Basically, we have created and implemented a whole agri-environment programme for the Burren from scratch over an eight-month period.

Dr Dunford said the farming conservation programme was a pioneering model of landscape management for Ireland, which would deliver significant environmental benefit for Ireland’s premier heritage landscape. “Given the structure of the programme, we can say, hand on heart, that this programme offers superb value for money to the taxpayer, even in straitened times,” he said.

“I have every confidence that it will grow in stature and impact and there are twice as many farmers who would really love to be part of this. It’s our biggest regret that we couldn’t have more farmers involved from day one, but we are determined to bring them on board in the years ahead.”

The programme was so important, he added, and was such a good investment that he was confident it could be rolled out to all farmers who wished to be involved.

“Farmers have been asking us to come out and look at the work to make sure they are doing it properly and have shown a great pride in having their own ‘scheme’ and having an input into how it works,” said Mr Dunford.