Minister reassures farmers nature restoration will be voluntary

Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Charlie McConalogue has reiterated his assurance to farmers that all nature restoration measures will be voluntary.

The comments follows the adoption of the Nature Restoration Law (NRL) was adopted by the Council of the EU on Monday (June 17), following a vote by member states’ environment ministers.

This means that the regulation has been ratified and will become law across the EU.

Nature restoration

Minister McConalogue said that the government secured “additional flexibilities in the legal text of the NRL to both support farmers and to recognise our specific Irish circumstances”.

“As a result of this intervention, the targets for restoration and rewetting of drained organic soils have been reduced from the original proposal.

“This means the total area for restoration now targets 50% of such area by 2050, rather than 70% as originally proposed, with a third to be rewetted, rather than a half.

“In addition, other flexibilities have been secured including an emergency break provision to suspend implementation in agriculture in the event of circumstances with severe consequences on food security,” he said.

Minister McConalogue clarified that the legal obligation to achieve NRL targets “is on the member states not individual landowners”.

Rewetting

The minister said that targets under the law for rewetting of drained organic soils “are proportional to the national figure”.

In March 2024, the EPA revised the national inventory figure downwards from 332,900ha to 141,000ha.

This change, that revises the figure downwards from 332,900ha to 141,000ha, accounts for drained organic soils that have rewetted naturally.

The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) said that reduced targets restoration and rewetting agreed by the EU would result in the following land area requirements nationally:

“With the existing national commitments to rewet 33,000ha of Bord na Móna lands, these lands are sufficient to deliver the NRL rewetting targets without recourse to privately owned land to 2050.

“This fact is a strong reassurance to farmers that there will be no obligatory requirement on farmers to rewet land due to the NRL,” McConalogue said.

The minister has also stressed that that restoration measures will not negatively impact any existing Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) commitment, or any other scheme or incentive delivered by his department.

He said that this was confirmed by European Commissioner for Environment, Oceans and Fisheries Virginijus Sinkevicius.

“Any restoration measures that landowners choose to participate in will be voluntary, well incentivised, and resourced.

“Ireland has already announced a €3.15 billion Climate and Nature Fund to support implementation.

“Farmers are committed to biodiversity and it is only right that they are provided with very strong funding separate to CAP to ensure that they are rewarded for any actions that they might voluntarily contribute to,” he said.

Rural co-operation

Meanwhile, chair of the Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Jackie Cahill has called for “immediate action to be taken to ensure rural co-operation” with the NRL.

“First and foremost, the farmers adjoining land that is to be rewetted must be given written guarantees that any wetting that takes place will not have any adverse impact on their land. Secondly, participation has to be voluntary.

“Finally, farmers who had land designated in 1998 had a very bitter experience with regards the financial impacts of designation. The capital value of their land has been eroded by at least 75-80%.

“There has to be long-term written guarantees on the financial compensation for land that is to be designated,” he said.

Deputy Cahill also recommended that previously designated land would qualify for the same written guarantees and compensation.

“Owners of that land are greatly contributing to our biodiversity and deserve to be adequately compensated for such,” he said.