The Irish Farmers' Association (IFA) Dairy Committee chair Martin McElearney has encouraged farmers to get involved with the Farming for Water European Innovation Partnership (EIP).

The €60 million Farming for Water project is the largest EIP ever to be carried out in Ireland and aims to address water quality challenges while delivering additional environmental benefits.

It is being delivered by the Local Authority Water Programme (LAWPRO), in partnership with Teagasc and Dairy Industry Ireland (DII).

The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) has allocated a budget of €50 million over five years, which will cover payments for up to 15,000 farmers.

The Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage has earmarked €10 million to cover the administrative and operational costs of the EIP.

The IFA Dairy chair has appealed to farmers to consider becoming part of the Farming for Water EIP.

“Improving water quality is critical to maintaining our nitrates derogation, this EIP can assist farmers to put more investments in place on our farms to protect water quality,” Martin McElearney said.He said that by focusing on practical and scalable measures, the project seeks to improve water quality and promote sustainable agricultural practices on eligible farms.

“The funding is ring fenced to help farmers implement targeted actions on their farms which go beyond the current regulatory requirements,” he said.

McElearney said that the first step for farmers is to get in touch with the Agricultural Sustainability Support and Advisory Programme (ASSAP) in their co-op to determine if the funding is applicable to their farm.

“Having personally engaged with the project myself I think it is an initiative that we can all get behind,” he said.