Charlie McConalogue (Donegal North East, Fianna Fail)
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14. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if he will revise the requirement for 50% of farmers on a commonage to agree a grazing plan in order to participate in GLAS; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [43004/14]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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The preservation and management of our commonages is accorded a very high priority within GLAS. This is as it should be given the importance of these habitats and of the work carried out by farmers in maintaining and farming these hills. However, p ayments under GLAS can only be made in respect of actions going beyond the baseline requirements under the Basic Payment Scheme under Pillar 1 of the CAP. In simple terms this means that a farmer cannot be paid twice for the same commitment under both schemes. Since the introduction of agri-environment schemes in the 1990s the Pillar 1 baseline has been progressively raised for each programming period and this challenges us all in developing schemes that will gain approval at EU level. Farmers are required under the Basic Pay ment Scheme to ensure land meets eligibility requirements and commonage land is no exception to this requirement. So, in order to secure funding for hill-farmers under GLAS, I have to design a scheme which manifestly goes beyond baseline. I also have to ensure that the commitments outlined are measurable and controllable, as this is critical to securing approval. The key characteristic of commonage land is that it is farmed in common and the actions undertaken under GLAS will have to reflect that. We cannot have multiple and varying plans submitted for the commonage – we need a single plan, drawn up by a single advisor, that sets out clearly what the objectives are over a five-year period and what those participating in this plan will do, individually and together, to achieve those objectives.

On this point, we clearly need to have sufficient people working together to achieve the best results for these commonages, in the interests of both the farming community and of the environment. I have already revised the minimum participation rate down from 80% to 50%, having listened to the concerns of farmers in this regard. I believe that 50% participation is the minimum required to make this work but I also believe that it represents an achievable target.

I think it is particularly important to point out that , again in response to farmer concerns, the 50% requirement will be based on active farmers only, i.e. those actually grazing the commonage. To give an example, if there are 20 shareholders on a commonage, and 15 are claiming shares under the Single Payment Scheme, but only 10 of those are actively grazing the land at present, the 50% requirement to trigger priority access to GLAS is just 5 farmers. I do not believe that a minimum participation requirement based on this model is insurmountable but where real difficulties are being encountered I have already said that the farmers concerned can approach the Commonage Implementation Committee to make their case.

Last month my Department held a series of information evenings for hill-farmers, where the new proposals have been explained in detail and where the farmers themselves have had the opportunity to express their concerns in person. In most cases, the farmers at these meetings have engaged very constructively and positively in the discussion and it has been a very useful process.  Once within the scheme, it is the farmers themselves who, in consultation with the commonage advisor, design their own plan, set the grazing levels and distribute any additional grazing requirement.  This puts the development of the plan in the hands of the farmers themselves and in recognition of the additional effort involved in both designing and implementing this plan, I have increased the rate of payment for commonage land from €75 per hectare under the last programme to €120 per hectare under GLAS.

If people look carefully at what is actually proposed, they will see that this is a very flexible scheme which actually gives the shareholders a real say in how the hills are managed, in their own best interests and in the interests of the environment. The priority now is to progress the launch of the scheme so that the benefits of these new arrangements, including the increased payments, can transfer to farmers as soon as possible.