The Minister for Land Use and Biodiversity, Senator Pippa Hackett, at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine today launched a public consultation seeking potential themes for European Innovation Partnership (EIP-Agri) projects under the CAP Strategic Plan 2023-2027. EIP projects are locally-led schemes which are designed and implemented by collaborative groups involving farmers, scientists, ecologists and other experts to deliver specific goals.
There were 57 such projects under the outgoing CAP ranging from themes such as climate, biodiversity, water, farm-safety, animal welfare and archaeology. This consultation is to seek the views of all stakeholders and public on the key themes for the next round of EIPs before a call for proposals is launched later this year.
Minister Hackett said:
“EIP projects have been a very successful model across the country and I am committed to continuing to fund new EIP‘s under Ireland’s CAP Strategic Plan 2023 – 2027. We have ring-fenced an indicative budget of €36 million for this and we are now seeking suggestions for themes, which may be developed further for potential calls for proposals for EIPs later this year.
During the Rural Development Programme, which was extended to end 2022, the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine supported 57 EIPs. These projects, recruited via five open calls and two targeted tenders, used innovative practices to tackle such varied challenges in the agri-sector, as Hen Harrier, upland farming, bumble bees, and farm health and safety.”
Minister Hackett added:
“Innovation is at the heart of addressing many of the challenges that we face such as climate change, biodiversity, animal welfare, and gender balance in the agriculture sector. We must ensure that we continue to create a completive, sustainable farming and forestry sector to ensure a steady supply of food, feed and biomaterials.
European Innovation Partnerships (EIPs) are fertile ground for practices that aim to address issues that farmers and farm families face daily. Such projects bring together a range of actors to trial and test innovations that may improve the environment, animal welfare and the livelihoods of those that work to provide quality food. We have scaled up the best of the outgoing EIPs into our larger-scale schemes such as ACRES.”
Welcoming the launch, Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Charlie McConalogue, said:
“This public consultation is an opportunity for farmers to inform the next EIP programme. EIPs have proven to be a really successful model of farming communities working together with other stakeholders, which now more than ever will be needed to drive innovation at local, rural, regional and national levels to our big environmental and agricultural challenges. The results from existing EIPs have informed the flagship agri-environmental scheme, ACRES, to include a significant results-based element to reward farmers for their environmental ambition and we hope the next round can be equally beneficial.”
Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Martin Heydon, said:
“The model of EIPs has worked well in piloting innovative solutions to address challenges around farm health, safety and well-being and encouraging a change in behaviour from the bottom up in relation to farm safety. This needs to be driven on further and I hope to see anyone with an interest in farmer safety and well-bring make their voice heard in this consultation. In addition, I look forward to hearing from those in our innovation system on how EIPs could be used to advance economic, environmental and social sustainability within our sector.”
EIP projects are supported across two streams, and short submissions are sought on:
Stream A, projects addressing wider competitiveness, modernisation and animal health and welfare challenges in the sector and/or, Stream B, projects on areas related to environmental, biodiversity and climate change challenges.
The survey is open, will remain open until 23.59hrs on Monday 12 June 2023, and may be accessed here.
It is intended to open a call for proposals on a selected theme or themes later this year, with the possibility of further calls during the programming period.
