Hen Harrier Programme targets more than 1,000 farmers

Some of the 4,000 farmers in hen harrier special protection areas (SPAs) have begun to register for the Hen Harrier Programme opened by Minister for Agriculture Michael Creed on Friday.

The programme will receive €25m from the Rural Development Programme over the next five years, 80% of which will go towards payments to farmers.

Programme manager Fergal Monaghan told the Irish Farmers Journal he hoped to enrol 1,100 to 1,200 farmers into the scheme.

Participating farmers must sign a contract and hire an adviser approved under the scheme. Training of advisers will begin in the new year.

Each applicant and their adviser will draw up a farm plan mapping all their fields. In a similar way to the Burren Programme, designated fields can earn a maximum number of points depending on their habitat value to the endangered bird. The points are lower for farmers already in GLAS because the new scheme cannot legally support actions already paid for.

Each year, the adviser will attribute a score out of 10 to reflect how hospitable each field is to hen harriers. Fields scored under four will not attract any payment, and those scored four to 10 will get increasing rates.

For example, a 60ha GLAS farm presented at the launch of the programme can receive between €2,642/year at score 4 and €4,927 if all fields hit the maximum score of 10. Improving scores will be rewarded by higher payments the following year.

The first farm plans will be submitted in the second half of 2018 and habitat payments will begin at the end of that year. Inspections will verify the points claimed by a sample of farmers every year.

The programme team will monitor hen harriers and distribute bonus payments if their population improves on an individual farm or across an SPA. This payment is capped at €50/ha or €1,000 per farm and will start in spring 2019.

Farm plans will also propose actions to improve habitats and each farm can receive up to €40/ha or €1,600 annually to implement them. Some will receive 100% grant aid, such as planting new hedgerows, while others are partially covered, such as 50% for new water troughs. Initial actions approved in 2018 will be paid after completion in 2019.

Participating farmers must attend a training session every year, for which they will be paid €100/day.

IFA hill chair Pat Dunne said the scheme must now address the restrictions that designations have on farmers’ land and incomes. The association will host a meeting with Monaghan at the Shearwater Hotel in Ballinasloe, Co Galway, this Friday at 1.30pm.

Jason Fitzgerald, chair of Irish Farmers with Designated Land (IFDL), said the new programme was a “missed opportunity” because it failed to restore the €350/ha payment available up to 40ha under the short-lived compensation scheme briefly introduced following the designation of hen harrier SPAs 10 years ago.