Holly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats)
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67. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the steps he is taking to ensure that as many eligible persons as possible that applied for the Rural Environmental-Agri Pilot Programme will be accepted on to the scheme. [26916/21]

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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The Programme for Government commits to rewarding farmers for adapting to more sustainable methods of farming and to the development of a new agri-environment scheme capable of delivering broad environmental and biodiversity benefits that will align financial supports with climate objectives. To advance this aim, the Results-Based Environmental Agri Pilot (REAP) opened for applications on 21st April.

REAP is an innovative, ambitious and farmer-friendly pilot that will deliver an important income boost to farmers while driving environmental benefits. It also helps the Department and indeed farmers and advisors to test some innovative actions and results-based scoring to inform the design of the next big agri-environment scheme. While the project will support our environmental objectives, it will also support farm incomes by providing up to €12,600 to participating farms over the term of their REAP contract. It is a targeted measure for farmers not currently participating in other agri-environment schemes.

The application stage is now closed and I’m delighted with the level of interest shown with approximately 10,800 applications submitted from 455 advisors. Obviously, this is heavily over-subscribed and we are reviewing the scheme approvals in this light. I have written to The EU Commissioner for Agriculture to inform him on the application rate and to explore opportunities for approving more farmers.

A ranking and selection process has been provided for in the project documentation. This will now be used to decide the applications that are accepted. The details of the process were made available to all applicants in the terms and conditions and are available on the Department's website. All successful and unsuccessful applicants will be notified by the Department in writing regarding their application for REAP.