Minister Hackett launches the new FarmPEAT EIP project at Clara Bog on Thursday 29th July .

The project is developing a locally-led, innovative, results-based farm scheme for farmers who manage lands that surround some of Ireland’s finest remaining raised bogs.

This is the latest in series of EIP projects funded by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) under Ireland’s Rural Development Programme (RDP) 2014-2020. In total, the Department has committed €64 million to these EIP projects over the lifetime of the RDP. Speaking at the launch, Minister Hackett said:

‘It’s encouraging to see work beginning on these inland bogs. Raised bogs represent one of the most valuable natural ecosystems in Ireland and the appropriate management of adjacent agricultural lands that surround them can play an important role in maintaining and enhancing their long-term conservation value.’

‘The project will work with local farmers to design and trial a programme especially adapted to the local landscape. It will reward farmers for improved management of habitats on peat soils along with other important landscape features such as eskers, field boundaries and watercourses. All of that will I believe combine to deliver enhanced environmental outcomes.’

The Project Manager, Caroline Lalor (pictured below) added: "We are delighted with the interest that local farmers have expressed in the Project. We are offering 42 farmers a contract for the first year and are planning to offer additional places next year."

The new locally-led programme brings together farmers, farm advisers, scientists, and researchers to deliver a targeted landscape level intervention which places the farmer at the heart of the process. The programme will be results-based in that farmers will get paid based on the scores they achieve, with higher scores, indicating higher environmental quality, securing higher payments. It is hoped that this programme will form a basis for future agri-environmental schemes in these areas. As such it presents an opportunity for farmers to be involved in developing policy that could provide long term environmental and economic benefits to their communities into the future.

Thanking those involved Minister Hackett concluded: ‘As we strive to reach challenging climate change targets, the work planned here will help Ireland transition towards more sustainable use of our peatlands. So, I want to congratulate Caroline Lalor, the project manager of FarmPEAT, on the work done so far in setting up this exciting new project. She has a strong team with her, and I wish them all every success in the future”.

The European Innovation Partnerships Initiative (EIP)/locally led schemes are funded through Ireland’s Rural Development Programme 2014-2020 (RDP). These locally-led schemes promote local solutions to specific issues and involve the establishment of Operational Groups to develop ideas or take existing ideas/research and put them into practice by being working towards the resolution of a practical problem.

The FarmPEAT Project is funded by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine and has a budget of €1.2 million and will run for two years. The programme is being run by the Project Team, which is based in Moate, Co. Westmeath.

The sites are located in the Irish midland counties of Roscommon, Offaly, Kildare and Westmeath. The sites were selected in order to represent the geographic spread of raised bogs in the midlands and also, at some of the sites, to allow for the FarmPEAT Project to support already completed restoration work and research conducted on the high bogs themselves. In addition, it was important when selecting the sites to choose raised bog sites that have a significant proportion of agricultural land surrounding them.

More information on the FarmPEAT project can be found below:

· website: FarmPEAT Project

· email: Info@farmpeat.ie

· phone: 090 6482745

Information on the European Innovation Partnership initiative can be accessed on the Department website at DAFM - European Innovation Partnership or by contacting eip@agriculture.gov.ie.

You can listen to Caroline Lalor, Project Manager and Minister Hackett speak about the launch on the weekly podcast of the Irish Farmers Journal: