Achievements

I am delivering on the Green Party vision of a sustainable agriculture and land use sector that offers Irish farm families viable income options to farm for climate, biodiversity and water quality. As Minister of State with responsibility for Land Use and Biodiversity, I have;

Introduced a new Organic Farming Scheme under the Common Agricultural Policy for 2023 – 2027, with a five-fold increase in funding to €256 million. This new Scheme will pay farmers to produce food to higher animal welfare standards and without using chemical inputs, and will help us to deliver on our target of tripling the area of agricultural land farmed organically to 7.5% of all farmland.

Secured funding of €1.3 billion for the Forestry Programme 2023 – 2027. This is the largest ever funding package for tree-planting In Ireland, and it will incentivise farmers and other landowners to grow our forest cover as an important part of our Climate Action Plan as we move to net zero by 2050. The new Forestry Programme will bring us towards a closer to nature forestry model, with significant incentives for agroforestry, forests for water, native broadleaf forests, continuous cover forestry, and a new small-scale native woodland scheme for farmers.

Developed a €60 million project to work with farmers and local communities to improve water quality on agricultural lands from 2023 to 2027, €10 million of which will be provided by Minister Malcolm Noonan’s Department. Farmers will be incentivised to take actions on their farmland to reduce losses of phosphorus, nitrogen, and sediment to watercourses.

In addition to 57 existing agri-environmental European Innovation Projects (EIPs), secured €36 million under the next Common Agricultural Policy for new EIPs, which will enable locally led teams to work with groups of farmers in pilot programmes aimed at achieving positive environmental and biodiversity outcomes.