Ireland's €5.78 billion rural development package for the next six years has been approved today by the European Commission.
Minister for Agriculture Mary Coughlan and Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs Eamon Ó Cuiv said the budget for 2007 to 2013 was presented to the EU's Rural Development Committee today.
The programme has been with the commission since last January and the Ministers said "considerable efforts" had been made both by the EC and its departments to have the programme running as quickly as possible.
Ms Coughlan said €2.33 billion of the funding will be provided by the European Agriculture Fund for Rural Development and the balance will come from the national exchequer.
"This programme represents unprecedented investment in Irish agriculture and will enhance our rural environment and help to secure farmers' income into the future," she said.
The three priorities to be addressed by the plan are competitiveness, the environment and the wider rural economy.
"This €5.78 billion package is clear evidence of this Government's commitment to farmers and to rural life in Ireland," Ms Coughlan said.
Minister for Food and Horticulture Trevor Sargent said today's approval of the scheme means the new Organic Farming Scheme, along with REPS 4, can be finalised and launched in early August.
Mr Sargent said there is "a small minority" of farmers for whom participation in the REPS scheme
may not suit their particular situation, e.g. some small-scale horticultural producers and a number of large-scale conventional tillage producers.
To facilitate these operators, new features have been developed allowing organic farmers to obtain organic support payments without having to be in REPS, he said.
"We are targeting these two specific areas as they are very much in deficit production-wise and there is a readymade market for the organic product."
Tillage farmers who wish to convert part of their holdings to organic production will be given special incentives to do so under the new scheme.