A major boost to the development of alternative energy crops such as elephant grass and willow was announced by EU Commissioner for Agriculture Mariann Fischer Boel when she visited Donegal yesterday.
The commission had decided to allow up to 50 per cent funding for the establishment costs of these crops and the EU would match the funding put forward by national governments.
"We want to push even further the growth of energy crops and we are willing co-finance 50 per cent of the expenditures linked to planting multi-annual crops in the tillage sector," she said.
The commissioner said this was mainly elephant grass, miscanthus and willow and she said the commission would continue to pay the €45 per hectare establishment grant, which would also be extended to the new eight EU states where this payment did not apply. "We need to do all we can to encourage the production of raw materials for bio-fuels and this major new initiative is a signal of the commission's determination to support the drive towards renewable energy in Europe," she said.
The commissioner said that the area for which the direct payment for energy crops was claimed in 2004 was between 1.2 and 1.3 million hectares and this should give a major boost to the sector.
Farmers growing willow and elephant grass have been complaining of the costs involved in planting and the long delay in getting the crops to a situation where they are profitable.
The announcement was welcomed by Minister for Agriculture Mary Coughlan who was hosting the commissioner's visit to Ireland where she will attend the Ryder Cup. The commissioner and the Minister had talks yesterday morning and the commissioner briefed her on the World Trade Talks, the dairy industry and the labelling of beef.
The couple then visited the Quinn farm at Laghey, near Donegal town where brothers Séamus and Eamon run their 300-acre beef and sheep producing farm. Their wives, Geraldine and Noeleen, yesterday hosted over 100 friends and neighbours who came to the farm to meet the commissioner and the Minister.
Ms Fischer Boel, who was born on a farm and is married to a Danish farmer, took tea with the friends and visitors and later walked the land looking at the system used by the brothers.
She teased and argued with the local farmers, forcing them to admit that beef prices were 10 per cent higher this year than last and she was very much at ease in their company.
Later, at the Tourism College in Killybegs, the commissioner said she was delighted with her visit as it was important that the public meet commissioners so they could see they were just ordinary people.