Unlocking the €60m EIP fund for water

The new Farming for Water European Innovation Partnership (EIP) is open for business and all farmers are eligible to take part. This was the message delivered at Dairy Day 2024 by Mairead Whitty, project manager for the EIP.

The EIP has a budget of €60m, with €50m of that to go directly to funding on-farm activities and changes that will help to improve water quality.

The programme is a collaboration between Dairy Industry Ireland, LAWPRO (local authority waters programme) and Teagasc, with the funding coming from the European Union.

The programme works with ASSAP and Teagasc advisers to identify potential problems on farms and put in measures to help address them, with correct advice and financial support.

Mairead said that when they sat down to review the first stage of the ASSAP programme, it was found that while many farmers took on board any of the suggestions around compliance, most of the supplementary measures outside of compliance weren’t being addressed because of a lack of funding on farms.

“We can’t address anything that’s got to do with compliance. The EIP funding is assuming that compliance is in place so what we are funding is supplementary measures,” she said.

When it comes to the actions that the EIP will fund, Mairead said it depends entirely on the farm, the soil type, where it is and what the pressures are in the area. She said there are 43 different measures, such as fencing off of water bodies, hedgerows for intercepting overland flows and taking up nutrients, farmyard bucket and brush [roadsweeper], wetland ponds, willow beds and source control, which she said is about reducing the amount of pollution getting on to land.

“An ASSAP adviser will come out to the farm, see what’s happening and identify any actions that farmers can take to address water quality, but also any actions that we can fund and they will make the application on behalf of the farmer,” she said.

As part of the process, farmers are obliged to undertake a rainwater management plan and they will get €250 for taking part in that, in addition to funding for whatever measures are undertaken.

In terms of compliance, Mairead says that compliance issues are separate and any discussions that take place between the adviser and the farmer are confidential.

Thomas Ryan, senior sustainability manager with Tirlán, also spoke at Dairy Day and said that they have 108 applications for funding gone in over a six-week period for a combined value of over €400,000.

Advisers

He said that the funding is available through all of the co-ops, not just Tirlán and that there are 30 ASSAP advisers working with the co-ops on water quality who are waiting for the call from farmers to get involved in the EIP.

Thomas gave the example of a farm that he was on in Laois the week before that received funding for a yard scraper, putting in hedgerows and diverting watercourse flow off the farm.

“There are 43 measures but everyone can find something that will benefit them and water quality. The application is made on your behalf and it is done for free by the ASSAP adviser,” he said. #

Mairead said that within LAWPRO, they will identify the areas for action within a catchment first and alert these areas to the ASSAP adviser who will then contact the farmer. But she said farmers can also go directly to the ASSAP adviser and request a visit.

In terms of the actions, she said they are very bespoke and based on what is happening on the farm, local knowledge and the pressures within the area. Mairead said there is also an element of income foregone with some of the measures, for example hedgerows or riparian zones where land is taken up for the action. She said that this would be made through an annual payment to the farmer who undertook the measure.

When it comes to getting paid for the measures undertaken, Mairead said that farmers can submit for payment once each measure is undertaken, even if there is more than one measure on the plan, but that they do incur the cost before they get paid for it.

In short