‘Back to basics’ in new REPS
THE new Government is ‘absolutely committed’ to a new €1.5 billion REPS scheme that will recognise and reward the environmental role of farmers in the West of Ireland, Minister of State, Anne Rabbitte, has stated this week.
The Minister of State at the Dept. of Children, Disability and Equality, said that the role farmers were playing currently – ‘and down through the generations’ – in looking after the environment, had to be rewarded.
“Farmers – and especially those in the West of Ireland – are farming in a grass-based system where there are natural boundaries of hedgerows, natural briars and bushes, that provide a near perfect setting for biodiversity.
“We want to try and get away from a situation where farmers were encouraged to cut and chop natural vegetation from around their boundary and internal walls to one where they nurture such natural habitats,” Anne Rabbitte told the Farming Tribune.
She said that as of this week, the Dept. of Agriculture was going ‘full steam ahead’ in putting the framework and details in place for the new REPS scheme that would recognise the ‘critically essential role’ that farming was playing in terms of carbon sequestration and the nurturing of biodiversity while also trying to ‘minimise paperwork’.
“I think that over recent years, what may have been overlooked is the role that farmers have played down through the generations in protecting the environment. It’s been a role that often has been completely understated and often farmers themselves haven’t been aware of the many positive things that they were doing in this regard as they went about their daily business,” said Anne Rabbitte.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
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