Patricia Ryan (Kildare South, Sinn Fein)
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305. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if he will include organic farmers in the Rural Environmental-Agri Pilot Programme; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [29066/21]

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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The Results-based Environmental-Agri Pilot (REAP) project is a short-term transitional measure which uses additional funding secured in Budget 2021 for farmers for this year. This necessitated a quick turnaround and I am happy to confirm that the project is on track despite the extremely tight timeframe. It has now closed and the Department is currently assessing the applications.

Driving the organic farming sector is also a key priority for the Deaprtment and we have set an ambitious target in the Programme for Government to bring the participation rate up to the EU average during the lifetime of this Government. The main support available to organic farmers is the Organic Farming Scheme which we rolled over to this year by providing an extra year's contract to all particpants.

We also reopened it this year to new entrants and a further 317 applications were received to join the latest tranche of the scheme.

In terms of particpation in both schemes, double funding under schemes is prohibited under EU regulations which was a consideration in limiting REAP to farmers who are not in any of the schemes or projects such as GLAS and Organics.