Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
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1029. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if he will ensure that the revised REPS scheme reflects the value today of the initial scheme that existed in 1994; and if he will include reseeding for beef farms in this scheme. [8658/21]

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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Negotiations regarding the new Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and the associated draft regulations are still ongoing. While progress has been made, there are decisions on a number of key issues still to be made, particularly in relation to the proposed CAP Strategic Plan. The proposed new Green Architecture which encompasses enhanced conditionality, eco-schemes and agri-environment climate measures needs to be considered in this regard.

The Green Low Carbon Agri-Environment Scheme (GLAS) was the national agri-environment climate measure under the Rural Development Programme to the end of 2020. To ensure that environmental benefits achieved to date are maintained and that farmers continue to receive support, GLAS 1 and 2 participants with contracts due to expire at end 2020 were offered the option of extending their contracts for a further year. The vast majority opted to do so.

As regards the successor scheme to GLAS, it is proposed that a new agri-environment climate scheme will be included in Ireland’s new CAP Strategic Plan.

Funding has also been made available for an agri-environment pilot project. It is proposed to do this as a results-based project in order to align it with the principles of the next CAP. Results-based agri-environment payment schemes reward farmers for committed environmental effort by linking payments to the quality of environmental outcomes delivered. This differs to the standard ‘prescription-based’ model used in GLAS.

By linking payments to defined indicators the results-based model creates a financial incentive linked with outcomes for participating farmers. The model also makes it worthwhile for participants to gain an understanding of the conditions required for the delivery of optimum biodiversity and environmental benefits. To inform the development of the project, a public consultation was recently launched and will remain open until 26th February. Final decisions on the structure and content of the pliot will be made after the public consultation process. A summary overview document and the online consulation survey are available at gov.ie - Public Consultation on Proposed Agri-Environment Results Based Pilot Project (www.gov.ie).

I am committed to protecting farmer incomes while also enhancing environmental measures.