A substantial new pool of grant aid has just been opened up to farmers in the south-east region as part of the EU's continuing policy of encouraging the agricultural sector to diversify into tourism activities.
South-East Tourism has been allocated £600,000 by the Department of Agriculture to assist suitable agri-tourism projects in the region. Since 1993, almost £1 million has been allocated to such projects in Carlow, Kilkenny, south Tipperary, Waterford and Wexford.
The purpose of the scheme is not to provide a substitute for farming, but to help farmers develop a source of additional income as they face a future which will include further reductions in price supports and subsidies.
It looks like easy money but, as farmers have learned the hard way, there is no such thing as a free lunch. Like all EU grant schemes, it is hedged by multiple conditions and considerable bureaucracy.
The primary qualification is that an applicant must be earning 25 per cent of his or her gross taxable income from farming - and the Department will require proof of this in the form of accountants' certificates or income tax returns.
Given that this is not a problem, the farmer must then look at the nature of the projects which may be assisted. The official announcement says that: "Grants can be given under certain conditions for the restoration of old farm buildings for the purpose of providing self-catering or bed and breakfast accommodation, but the project must also include an investment in leisure facilities, which can also be grant-assisted." The "certain conditions" mentioned are not mere formality, as many farmers have found. By their nature, set conditions tend to standardise the requirements, and this frequently raises major difficulties in practice.
The experience of Harry Gray, a farmer at Bunmahon on the Co Waterford coast, demonstrates the problems that can arise. He regularly lets the old family farmhouse to visitors, who are well satisfied with the comfortable, traditional-type accommodation.
But, Mr Gray points out: "We are not in the Bord Failte guide. Ours is a very old house, with old furniture - some of it antique. It would not pass what their rules define as suitable tourist-type accommodation." The rules, he says, apply modern concepts and standards to accommodation developed in a different era: "You have to have little bedside tables, with two lights exactly the same, and so on. It would be totally out of character with the place, and anyway people don't want it. Our visitors have urged us not to change the place." He estimates that the cost of altering traditional accommodation to fit the standards set by the rules would begin to approximate to the cost of an entirely new building - an uneconomic proposition for most farmers. "It's not that you're making a lot of money from the farmhouse, but the use of it keeps it alive. To suit Bord Failte you would have to do an awful lot of things that you really see no sense in. . . " The season is, in any case, too short to justify such investment, even if farmers found it acceptable. Mr Gray has one family tenant for the month of August, but from the amount of inquiries "we could have had 21".
The agri-tourism grants are also conditional on "leisure facilities" being included.
But this raises the other major bugbear for farmers - the necessity of insurance cover for such public activities on the farm. "When you get all ages participating, the insurance can be very high," he notes.
Mr Jack Walsh of South-East Tourism agreed that the guidelines could be onerous, but he said that as the standards were set out they had to be applied by the grant operators.
The requirement for leisure facilities was included, he said, on the principle "that if you're putting people into remote areas you must have something for them to do".
Many farmers will not see the scale of investment required to comply with the regulations as being justified in terms of the potential return for what is, after all, a part-time sideline.
Nevertheless, the last tranche of £600,000 allocated to this programme for rural development was all taken up. It would seem that farmers who are attracted to the idea have to be prepared to go into agri-tourism in a major way, with substantial personal outlay, which to some extent defeats the purpose of the scheme.
However, a useful aspect of the scheme is the availability of funds to assist marketing. Farmers who already have tourism facilities can apply for a marketing grant of up to £1,500, based on a maximum expenditure of £3,000. And local development groups can also apply for marketing funds up to a maximum of £10,000, based on an expenditure of up to £20,000 within the lifetime of the scheme.
The praiseworthy thrust of the scheme is the preservation of old farm buildings. The ongoing problem for individual farmers is the scale and cost of the work required to qualify for the grants.