Changes to agri-environmental schemes to make it easier for farmers to qualify for aid may hold the key to continuing farmer participation in the pay and partnership programme.
Talks aimed at bringing the farmers into a new national agreement stalled last Saturday night when the farming organisations announced that there was nothing in the deal for them.
Attention is now being focused on changes to the Rural Environment Protection Scheme. Participants in this scheme agree to farm in an environmentally-sensitive manner in return for a yearly payment to compensate them for reduced output.
The farming organisations claim that the restrictions which the scheme imposes are too strict. They also say that there is too much paperwork and that the costs involved in meeting the qualification standards are excessive.
Under the original scheme, the average payment to farmers was €4,400. This has now been increased to €4,900 in a revised scheme which is 75 per cent funded by the EU.
A review of REPS is currently taking place and submissions are being studied with a view to preparing proposals on changes to the scheme. These will eventually be submitted to the European Commission.
Farmers have expressed concern at implementation of the EU directive on nitrates, over which Ireland will have to answer a case brought by the EU in the European Court of Justice. The Government has agreed that, because of elevated levels of nitrates, there are arguments for designating the entire State as a "nitrate-vulnerable zone". The farming organisations are opposed to this and have argued that in areas where groundwater does not have elevated levels of nitrates, curbs which must be imposed on the spreading of fertilisers should not be apply.
According to farming sources, progress on simplifying the operation of the REPS scheme and on the nitrates directive would go a long way to removing obstacles to farmer involvement in a new national agreement.