Farmers urged to ‘move quickly’ to secure grants

Groups representing the agri-food industry last night urged farmers to "move quickly" to secure grants as fresh details of the new farm safety scheme announced in Tuesday's budget emerged yesterday.

The scheme is a targeted programme designed to assist farmers to upgrade the standard of safety on their farms. The amount of funding available for the scheme will be €12.2 million and the grant rate will be 40 per cent up to a maximum eligible investment ceiling of €20,000. The maximum grant would therefore be €8,000.

The measure was announced in Tuesday's budget, although Minister for Agriculture Simon Coveney said the funding would come from available funds under the old 2007-2013 Rural Development Programme.

Mr Coveney yesterday said everybody was acutely aware of the “very high level of risk” which Irish farms represent in terms of occupational safety.

“I can’t think of anything that would have a higher priority than a loved one’s life and I would appeal to the farming community to look at this scheme carefully and examine the list of eligible investment items to address the safety issues identified,” he said.

“It is in all our interests and responsibility to raise the level of safety on our farms. It might just be the best investment ever carried out.”

The Minister said he would be bringing proposals for the new scheme to the EU for approval before the end of the week and expected to have application forms and full terms and conditions available on his department’s website over the next few days.

As the Scheme is being introduced under the 2007-2013 Rural Development Programme, “very tight time-limits” will be applicable as far as the lodgement of applications and completion of work by farmers is concerned.

The closing date for receipt of applications will January 9th 2015 and all work must be completed by farmers and a payment claim lodged with his Department by August 31st 2015. The Minister confirmed that there will be no extensions granted to either of these deadlines.