The major reason for the fall in the number of farmers opting to join the Rural Environment Protection Scheme (REPS) has been the dramatic rise in compliance costs, the IFA president, Mr John Dillon, said yesterday.
He told a press conference in Dublin he was disappointed that the numbers participating in the important environmental scheme had fallen from 45,000 in 1999 to 35,000 at present.
Presenting a series of proposed amendments to the scheme to make it more attractive to farmers, Mr Dillon said the cost of complying with the scheme had risen by 30 per cent.
This was at a time when farm incomes were falling.
A radical overhaul of the payment rates and qualifying rules was necessary, he said.
This could be done without the need for any further funding than that being provided by the Common Agricultural Policy's Rural Development Plan.
"Irish farmers have shown a strong commitment to managing their farms by meeting strict environmental guidelines but the restrictive rules and payment shortfalls in the REPS scheme had made compliance financially unviable."
He said he was disappointed that the numbers participating in REPS had fallen from 45,000 in 1999 to 35,000 at present.
A major reason for this was the dramatic increase of up to 30 per cent in compliance costs at a time of falling farm incomes and the increasing costs of professional REPS planning fees.
The IFA set out a number of key changes to improve the uptake of the REPS II five-year environmental plan from the current level of 35,000 farmers to achieve the target of 70,000 farmers by the end of 2006.
In the CAP Rural Development Plan 2000 - 2006 more than €2 billion was allocated to agri-environmental schemes.
However, by the end of 2002 participation was below target with less than 30 per cent of the resources allocated.
Mr Dillon said that among the problems with the current scheme was that it was clearly unattractive to smaller farmers.
He said they would have to be encouraged to join with higher payments.