IT WAS not unusual 20 years ago to see slum-like conditions in rural Ireland. Red tin-roofed and unpainted barns, sagging farm gates, badly-cared-for stone walls and untidiness were the order of the day.
The Rural Environment Protection Scheme (Reps) has since brought astonishing changes to the rural landscape.
Pushed by the then EU agriculture commissioner, Ray MacSharry, the original scheme, introduced in 1994, was aimed at tidying up the rural landscape and protecting wildlife, wetlands, old buildings, archaeological monuments and even rare breeds of farm animals.
Small farmers, in particular, took the scheme to their hearts. They had to enter into a five-year contract to farm in an environmentally sensitive way working to a plan drawn up either by Teagasc or independent consultants.
For that, they could receive up to £5,000 a year at a time when the average farm income was not much more than twice that figure. Thousands of poorer farmers joined up.
The larger farmers, unhindered by the much stricter environmental legislation such as the nitrates and water-quality directives which were to follow a decade later, were not terribly interested.
By taking part in the scheme, farmers were educated about the importance of their own surroundings, including the importance of keeping the water clean on their lands and how to protect it and cherish wildlife.
Proper fencing was erected and old buildings were now seen as an asset, not a liability. The scheme suited low intensity, small family farms.
Since first introduced, Reps has seen 10,000km of new and rejuvenated hedgerows in Ireland, the largest planting in 200 years.
In the west of Ireland, over 3,000km of the network of stonewalls have been maintained and improved, and farmers are well on their way to planting over one million native broadleaf trees, according to Teagasc.
As the EU tightened its environmental controls on farming and many of the things farmers had to do in Reps became mandatory, more farmers joined up bringing to 62,000 the numbers taking part.
They created new habitats which included specially planted areas of linnet crops for wildlife, field margins, woodlands and traditional orchards in the revised scheme of 2004.
Of the 62,000 farmers in the scheme, which is 40 per cent funded by the EU, more than three-quarters of these are sheep and cattle farmers who are the lowest income farmers in Ireland. Some 40 per cent of those involved are in Galway and Mayo.
The average payment received is €6,400. Reps will continue for those who are in the scheme until 2012 and Minister for Agriculture Brendan Smith has promised an unspecified new Reps scheme from 2010 with limited funding of €45 million a year.
Announcing the closure of the current scheme, the Minister said in view of the current budgetary situation and the increase, over the past year, by more than 5,000 participants, it had been decided to close Reps 4 to all new applicants, as well as those completing their five-year contracts.
Farmers have held marches to the clinics and some homes of backbench Government TDs and Senators.
They have picketed a Cabinet meeting at Government buildings and plan a series of mass demonstrations which will continue, they say, until the decision is reversed.