Irish farmers who join the revised EU Rural Environment Protection Scheme (REPS), under which they enter into a contract to farm in an environmentally-sensitive way, will receive a 28 per cent increase in payments, it was announced last night. Sean Mac Connell, Agriculture Correspondent, reports.
The Minister for Agriculture and Food, Mr Walsh, said last night that his officials had successfully negotiated changes to the new REPS scheme which he expected to be formally approved by the Agricultural Structures Committee on May 11th.
The Minister's statement said that the new scheme would deliver an average increase of 28 per cent in payments to farmers. REPS farmers will continue, as before, to follow a set of basic but important measures to maintain the environment.
"Under the new scheme, however, they will also take on two from a range of 15 new measures designed to enhance the environment and increase biodiversity, such as planting trees and creating or extending habitats," his statement added.
"There are new supplementary measures including support for the planting of orchards with native apple varieties, while organic farmers will be eligible for top-up payments on a larger area," it went on.
Up to now there had been a disappointing uptake to the REPS scheme which the Government thought would have attracted up to 70,000 farmers.
However, farmers complained that the cost of drawing up plans for the scheme and the bureaucracy involved in taking part was too difficult, and made the scheme appear quite unattractive.
There were difficulties too with the designation of farms and portions of farms as wildlife habitats and areas where flora had to be protected.
Speaking in the Dáil yesterday, Mr Walsh announced that the maximum basic payment for a REPS farmer would in future be €8,550. This has increased from €6,040 in the first REPS scheme.
He also told the Dáil the allocation for the implementation of the scheme this year was €260 million, compared with expenditure of €182 million in 2003.
"The provision for REPS is an increase of over €77m or 43 per cent on the 2003 out-turn, and it confirms that funding for this scheme is a priority for me.
"This very significant level of funding will allow for an increase in the number of farmers participating in the scheme and for payment of the increased rates agreed under the Sustaining Progress agreement."