Donegal farmers approved for pilot ‘REAP’ project

Hundreds of Donegal farmers have been approved for the new Results Based Environment-Agri Pilot Project (REAP).

The Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Charlie McConalogue, yesterday announced that approval letters began to be issued to the 5,000 participants selected to participate in the REAP project.

This pilot is one of the transitional measures for Irish farming using funding secured by the Minister this year for environmental initiatives. It forms part of the suite of measures provided for in the 10th amendment to the Rural Development Programme recently approved by the European Commission.

 Commenting at the launch of REAP, Minister McConalogue said, “I’m hugely excited about the REAP project as it helps us, farmers and Advisors to identify the value we can bring to our next national agri-environmental scheme by trialling some measures now. It will identify the environmental and biodiversity returns from specific farm measures while delivering a key new income to farmers. It will of course also provide meaningful payments to farmers of up to €12,600 potentially over the course pilot.”