This article is from page 44 of the 2014-01-21 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 44 JPG
HUNDREDS of farmers in the Burren could be in line for a € 20 million boost if the Department of Agriculture decide to fully fund the rollout of the Burren Farming for Conservation Project (BFCP).
The programme, which is funded until the end of 2014, was mentioned in the draft publication of the Rural Development Programme (RDP), which had just been published. According to the report, a total of € 5 million will be allocated each year to fund the BFCP and other such programmes between 2015 and 2020.
The Carron-based programme currently supports essential environmental developments on more than 100 farms in the Burren. The group and the Burren IFA have been campaigning for the full rollout of the scheme to the entire Burren National Park, a move that would cost an estimated € 5 million.
The BFCP is a pioneering project in the world of environmentallyfriendly farming, and it is not clear which organisation could compete with it for a share of the € 5 million.
“This is a draft document and nothing has been finalised yet. There is a tentative budget of € 5 million per annum in the report but we don’t have a clear idea where we stand at the moment. We are still in limbo to a certain extent,” said Brendan Dunford of the BRCP.
“All we can do is keep working with the Burren IFA and the National Parks and Wildlife Service to convince people of the merits of the scheme. There is a still a few months to go before the budget for the Rural Development Programme in finalised and all we can do is keep on the pressure until that time.”
The BFCP has been in operation in Clare since 2009, and grew out of the BurrenLife Project, which was Ireland’s first ever programme for conservation farming.