Hill farmers say that REAP pilot ‘confirms worst fears’
THE Sligo-based national president of the Irish Natura & Hill Farmers Association (INHFA) has said he is “stunned” by proposals in the new results-based Environmental-Agri pilot Project (REAP) to exclude commonages and land containing heather from the scheme.
Speaking after the Department’s presentation to the farm organisations, INHFA president Colm O’Donnell expressed his “dismay” on the exclusion of these lands, which he said are “predominately peat based and prime habitats for a wide range of fauna such as the endangered red grouse which is an annex 1 red listed bird”.
He went on: “It is shocking that an agri-environmental programme supported by the Irish state and the European Union ignores the most valuable lands in the country with a high percentage of these lands forming part of the Natura 2000 network.” Mr O’Donnell said that excluding these lands, “does increase our suspicion that the habitats and biodiversity is of secondary importance to the carbon asset that many believe and hope these lands can deliver”.
He said it was similar to what was happening in the CAP negotiations under GAEC 2 where “prescribed actions could make peat soils ineligible, this pilot has also identified large areas of peat soils for exclusion”.
“As this is a pilot it will be instrumental in forming the basis for the next agri-environmental scheme in the new CAP,” he said.
He questioned “if commonage and hill land where heather dominates will even get access to any such scheme.”
In relation to the proposed budget of €10m, Mr O’Donnell said that “all farmers will be disappointed with the level of support which is well short of the €1.5bn in the state’s carbon fund that was initially suggested or the more modest €79m outlined in last Autumn’s budget.”
The INHFA leader also addressed suggestions by some that the organisation was scare-mongering when it comes to proposals around peat soils.
He said that “when we look at these and other proposals on agriculture and across climate change policy it isn’t hard to join the dots and see the land and our farm families who farm those lands extensively are right now the firing line”.
Meanwhile, ICSA president Dermot Kelleher has expressed shock that the proposed REAP scheme “is designed to exclude the vast majority of medium intensity farmers in order to accommodate the most intensive derogation farmers”.
“The proposal is to divide the applicants into two groups, one (farmers with less than 140kg N/ha stocking rate) which will be selected on the basis of lowest stocking rate and one (farmers with greater than 140kg N/ha stocking rate) which will be biased towards the highest stocking rate.”
“This is an incredible signal. The farmer who needs a nitrates derogation is welcome to claim even more money from CAP whereas those who are less intensive are potentially ruled out. It is also surprising that commonage land and land with heather is excluded.” “The scheme provides for €1,200 participation fee, but this will be eaten into by planner costs. The focus is on low input pasture or on multi-species leys (for the intensive farmers) and also includes extra money for planting trees and hedges. There is a lot of focus on higher payments for wider field margins and stone wall quality for bonus payments but obviously there will be cost associated with this. For example, tree planting is included at a rate of €9.20 per tree.”
“To be fair some of the ideas are worth further consideration but the overall problem is that the upper limit of 10 hectares militates against a decent payment overall.” Mr Kelleher said the Minister also needs to explain why there is only €10 million for this scheme when farmers were led to believe that a much higher figure was proposed in the budget.
In the Low Input Grassland measure the payment is between €250-400/ha on up to 10 hectares. This is combined with the participation fee (€1,200) and a possible complementary payment (for tree planting) up to €1,200. In that scenario (maximum tree planting assumed) the overall payment is somewhere between €4,900 and €6,400.”
He said that for the longer term “we need a scheme that can deliver €15,000 to low-income cattle, sheep, and tillage farmers”.
The chairperson of the ICMSA’s Farm and Rural Affairs Committee said that farmers will be hugely disappointed by the scheme’s budget and the structure.
Denis Drennan said that it was a “very far cry” from the version that had been spun and hyped by official sources.
Mr Drennan said that with a budget of €10m only approximately 2,200 farmers will be able to participate in the scheme with a maximum payment of approximately €5,000 per participant.
“Yet again farmers find themselves in a position where they are willing to invest in environmental initiatives, but our Government and the EU have failed to put up the necessary funding despite launching multiple environmental strategies at this stage.
“The old adage is that actions speak louder than words and it’s absolutely obvious that there is an unwillingness to invest in environmental public good – despite all the rhetoric. This disconnect between aspirations and investment simply has to be addressed,” said Mr Drennan.