Concerns have been raised over the amount of payment that will be received by farmers who choose the low-input grassland (LIG) option in the Rural Environment Agri Pilot Project (REAP).
Under REAP farmers can choose the LIG option or the multi-species ley (MSL) option. Under the former, farmers can potentially avail of up to €400/ha in payments in each of the two years of the scheme.
One of the scoring criteria on the LIG option is ‘positive indicator non-grass species’ that are found on the land applied for, pre-defined from a list of species.
However, a TD has raised fears that some of the species that are found on this list will hinder payment rates.
Speaking this evening (Wednesday, June 16), independent deputy Michael Fitzmaurice said: “Possibly the most worrying aspect of REAP is the indicator list of species for the LIG measure.
“From talking to planners on the ground, there are significant concerns that even the successful applicants to the scheme will find it extremely difficult to score highly on this measure, meaning the value of participating in the scheme will be greatly diminished,” warned the Roscommon-Galway TD.
He continued: “The payments available under this scheme will not match what farmers received under previous environmental schemes… While I understand that this is a pilot scheme, it does not bode well for the incoming CAP [Common Agricultural Policy] period if this is what is being drawn up.
“Farmers must be paid fairly for the level of work put in as part of an environmental scheme.”
Fitzmaurice also criticised the selection process for the oversubscribed scheme.
The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine initially envisaged around 2,000 participants. However, the initial number of applicants was over five times this figure – approaching 11,000.
Earlier this month, Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue announced that approval letters would be issued to 5,000 farmers, rather than 2,000. This meant that almost 6,000 farmers would receive letters informing them that they had not been accepted into the pilot.
However, of those that received rejection letters, it appears that around 2,000 were rejected based on a “computerised random selection process”.
The applications were scored on marks out of 75 on three elements: farm intersection with priority water area (25 marks); proportion of Natura land on holding (25 marks); and proportion of area of natural constraint (ANC) land on holding (25 marks).
Applications that scored over 50 marks were approved, while applications that scored less than 50 were rejected. However, applications that scored exactly 50 marks were included in the random selection process in order to fill the remaining places.
As roughly 1,600 applications were approved with over 50 marks, around 3,400 applications were approved after random selection to fill the remaining places.
However, some 5,500 applications were included in the process for having received exactly 50 marks, with roughly 2,100 missing out.
“We now have a situation where a farmer may have been rejected from the scheme, despite their next-door neighbour – who received the same amount of points as part of the initial assessment – being accepted,” Fitzmaurice remarked.
He also suggested that farmers that drop out of the scheme will not be replaced.
“I am also led to believe that any successful applicants who decide to drop out of the scheme will not be replaced at all, meaning there is a possibility that the full budget will not be used,” the TD said.