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There is no possibility of another agri-environmental scheme like REPS because of changes to how schemes are designed, a Department of Agriculture official told farmers at the IFA hill sheep forum.
Niall Ryan of the Department of Agriculture told farmers at the forum that schemes are now drawn up on the basis of costs incurred and income foregone.
Ryan said: “We will never have the REPS back. Unfortunately, we won’t have the REPS back because it was a whole-farm approach.
“There were 11 different measures and they were all costed individually, rolled-up into one and divided out over an average farm.”
For the most recent agri-environment scheme, GLAS, each action was individually costed before being verified by the European Commission. Ryan said every action “has to stand on its own two feet”.
Along with costs incurred and income foregone, there is also a transaction cost which is an additional payment if a measure was difficult to implement. There was a 20% transaction cost built into previous schemes and Ryan said the Department would look at including them in future.
One farmer at the forum said those farming upland areas needed a scheme that was not overly bureaucratic and paid well.
IFA sheep chair Sean Dennehy said farmers remembered REPS and kept bringing it up because of the funding that was available.
“You mentioned income foregone, costs incurred. Our incomes are so low we can’t do the income foregone, costs incurred. It won’t qualify us for an environmental scheme. If we could be paid on results, it would deliver a worthwhile environmental scheme,” Dennehy said.
Ryan said it was possible to have results-based schemes but the payment had to be for the product, not the action.
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