The Minister for Agriculture has reversed a decision to suspend a €10 million scheme that paid tillage farmers to chop straw left over after harvesting cereals and reincorporate into the soil.
Charlie McConalogue is also to introduce an incentive to get farmers to bale better quality straw for use as bedding and animal fodder constituents.
The Straw Incorporation Measure, deferred by Mr McConalogue last week, encouraged tillage farmers to improve their soils organic matter, nutrients and carbon storage by reincorporating straw back into it.
The deferment reduced the need for chemical fertilisers and also paid tillage farmers additional income.
However, the minister was concerned about a shortage of straw later this year due to poor weather.
Tillage farmer Rory Doyle from Co Laois had chopped his straw already and said farmers were hoping to get about €7,500 from the scheme.
"Two weeks into the harvest the minister announced he was pulling the scheme, it's outrageous.
"We made the decision to chop the straw because it suits our practice, we're sequestering nitrgogen and carbon and we're using less chemical fertiliser.
"Its a bonus for us, and we were very happy with the scheme," he said.
Mr Doyle said the scheme is vital and "the tillage sector is on its knees at the moment".
Mr McConalolgue was sharply criticised by the farming organisations and by Mnister of State in his department Martin Heydon for ending the scheme.
This afternoon, Mr McConalogue held a meeting with farm organisations.
Afterwards, he announced the Straw Incorporation Measure would go ahead along with an additional incentive to get farmers to bale better quality straw.
"I am in no doubt that this was the right decision and that this was the right outcome. It was important to make sure we were prepared for the winter ahead.
"I did not expect everyone to agree with the fact that I was not proceeding as planned, but it was important I did not proceed as planned because I did not want good straw chopped into the ground.
"I want that baled up and made available for our livestock sectors," he said.
The announcement has been welcomed by farming bodies, although the entire episode had damaged confidence according to the IFA.
"It probably is a reasonably satisfactory outcome to a mess and debacle that was caused by the minister in the first place," said IFA President Francie Gorman.
"It does bring certainty to tillage farmers who now know they can either chop straw or bale it. Confidence is damaged though when you arbitrarily see a scheme suspended."
Minister of State in the Department of Agriculture Martin Heydon welcomed the decision "to reinstate the Straw Incorporation Measure" and said the decision "draws a line under a difficult week for tillage farmers who continue to try and save the harvest in difficult weather conditions".
We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences
