The Burren: where cowman is king

The Burren Farming for Conservation Programme (BFCP), which ran from 2010 to 2015, is referred to locally as the Burren Life programme. It was rolled out across 160 farms (approximately 15,000ha) and converted what was a research project on 20 farms into a fully fledged agri-environmental scheme.

Entry was on a voluntary but competitive basis and the average annual payment of €6,500 ranged from under €1,000 to a maximum of €15,000.

Hundreds of farm families continue to live and work in the Burren, which has a long and proud history of agriculture. The Poulnabrone dolmen, in the central Burren, is recognised as having been built by some of Ireland’s first farmers approximately 5,800 years ago.

Burren Life was jointly funded by the Department of Agriculture, which paid €6m to the farmers over six years, and the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS), which funded the local office and management team. It was designed to suit the needs of individual farmers and payment is issued under two categories: for action and for results. Farmers have spent an additional €1.3m through co-funding of farm work.

“Some 345 farmers applied and there were 100 places offered initially,” said Sharon Parr, project scientist with BFCP. “There were a number of extra places offered over the following two years and, at this stage, there are 156 farmers involved.”

All farmers are required to attend training each year, which has a classroom element and a farm visit.

Payment for actions

Each farmer completes an annual farm plan with the help of one of the 11 advisers and each plan contains a list of actions. The actions are nominated by the farmer and aim to improve management of the winterage site to be carried out within the year. They get a payment towards works carried out. Under this programme, there was a cap of €15,000 on payments.

Work completed over the five years:

Only part of the costs of capital works that farmers carry out are paid because “if you pay 100% of the cost, farmers don’t necessarily buy into it as much,” Parr said. In total, 75% of the costs are covered for scrub removal, internal wall repair and habitat protection. Water troughs and feed storage bins are funded at 50%, while access tracks receive 25% funding. Some works carried out have to receive permission from the NPWS and National Monuments Service beforehand.

Payment for results

Each field of species-rich grassland is assessed annually with a habitat health checklist, which gives the field a score between one and 10.

“There’s a set of guidance instructions for scoring winterage,” said Parr. “You get a payment which gets higher depending on how well managed the fields are. You have to score five or more to get paid on that field. The fields with lower scores we don’t pay on.”

The main criteria for scoring winterages are: grazing level, feed site damage, damage to water sources, bare soil and erosion, encroaching scrub and problem species. A separate scoring system is used for lowland grasslands and meadows.

The payments are allocated regressively to encourage farmers to aim for a full score on as many fields as possible.

“Your fields scoring five could potentially be pulling off the 10, which could receive €120/ha and instead you’re receiving €60/ha,” said Parr. “Europe hasn’t got around regressive payments but farmers have no problem with it. They like this payment system because it is fair and incentivises improved performance.”

The improvement in field scores provides evidence of improved conservation status, which can help demonstrate value for money when looking to justify the continued spending of public money on an agri-environmental scheme.

Future plans

A new Burren programme started this year with an annual budget estimated to be more than €3m and a five-year time frame. The Burren Life programme structure will largely be retained, but changes such as Department funding and the introduction of five-year farm plans are likely. Many farmers in this scheme will also be in AEOS, GLAS and the Organic Farming Scheme, so precautions will be taken to ensure no capital works are double-funded. No results-based payments will be made for scores less than five.

Watch

The Burrenbeo trust have produced a number of videos with farmers taking part in the programme:

Michael John Moroney is farming at home with his parents who have 90 milking cows and beef cattle that they bring to the weaning stage.

“Before I had been in REPS, what it meant was that you could only put up the cattle [on the winterage] in the winter time but now you can summer graze and it’s not as strong,” said Moroney. “It’s easier to eat the winterage before it was gone wild because it was left too long. I’m say 10 or 12 miles away from the winterage, so you couldn’t just open up the gate and let them down off it.”

Before the introduction of REPS, farmers could manage the winterage through summer grazing.

“You’ve different types of winterages; some will have short grass that will last all summer and all winter,” said Moroney. “But the heavier grass will get stronger and fall over and it’s next to impossible to manage it unless it’s topped off in late summer.”

Listen to an interview with Michael in our podcast below:

The important flora species cannot survive when the grassland isn’t grazed because it takes the light from them. He believes the locally led programme is simple and works well because the Burren Life team is recognised by the relevant authorities, whereas before he would have to seek approval from the OPW. “It’s a fierce simple system – there’s no big book or anything,” said Moroney. “There’s two pages in the farm plan, one is the map. The adviser comes out with his map and his GPS reader and I can tell him I want to put up a wall, put up a gate here and a water trough here. We mark all that down and he’ll go away and do it up and send it up to Carron [where the project team is based]. In Carron, they will look at it and see will I be allowed to take out those bushes.”