Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Charlie McConalogue has reiterated a guarantee that farmers will not be required to rewet land under the Nature Restoration Law.
He told members of the Irish Natura and Hill Farmers’ Association (INHFA) at the association’s annual general meeting (AGM) this evening (Thursday, July 6) that the government’s position is that the state “will take the lead on rewetting”.
“[We will use] state lands to shoulder the majority of the burden associated with rewetting, and very importantly, any farmer engagement will be voluntary, and well incentivised,” he said.
According to the minister, the government’s objective “was to make sure that in relation to the targets that were put in place, that we would be able to ensure there would be no mandatory requirement on farmers to change what they are doing with their land type.
“From that point on I would have engaged at European Commission level, at EU Council level, and bilaterally with other agricultural ministers, as well as at national level here…to make sure we could get our national position agreed to ensure the targets were appropriate,” he added.
The minister and the wider government supports the position that was adopted by the Council of the EU last month.
Minister McConalogue told the INHFA AGM that the council position “will ensure that all of our rewetting requirement can be done from state-owned land, and that’s a key assurance to farmers that there will be no requirement on [them] to do anything in particular with their land”.
However, the minister also stated that farmers who wished to play a part in nature restoration and rewetting would be able to do so, and would be incentivised to do that.
In other news coming out of the INHFA AGM, Vincent Roddy has been re-elected as the association’s president.
Roddy was elected to a new two-year term as the association’s president, after serving in the role since 2021 when he took over from Colm O’Donnell.
Speaking to Agriland at the AGM today, Roddy said that, as in recent months, the EU Nature Restoration Law, as well as land designations under the Natura 2000 network, will continue to be a strong focus both for himself and the INHFA generally.