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For Immediate Release

Monday 31 August 2009

SENATOR DALY INVITES SUBMISSIONS ON NEW AGRI-ENVIRONMENT SCHEME

Senator Mark Daly invites submissions on the Department for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food's, recent announcement of a new agri-environmental scheme which will be introduced in 2010. Funding for the new scheme will include the additional modulation funds which Minister Smith ensured would stay with Irish farmers in the recent negotiations on the CAP ‘Health Check’ and also exchequer funding.

An outline of the scheme has already been sent to the European Commission as part of a set of proposals for an amended Rural Development Programme. This followed an earlier consultation exercise about the use of the modulation funds.

"The new scheme will consist of a ‘menu’ of actions from which farmers can select options that will be suitable for their particular farms and farming systems," Senator Daly said. "The outline sent to the Commission consists mostly of elements that will be familiar to farmers as elements of REPS, such as biodiversity options and supplementary measures."

The EU Regulations identify certain ‘challenges’ for which modulation money must be used. These include climate change, renewable energies, water management and biodiversity.

"The outline of the new scheme that has gone to the Commission was designed to target these challenges," Senator Daly explained. "Stakeholders are now invited to comment on the detailed elements of the scheme and to put forward ideas that could be incorporated in the scheme to help deliver benefits in terms of water quality, biodiversity and climate change."

ENDS