A public consultation seeking potential themes for European Innovation Partnership (EIP) projects under the CAP Strategic Plan 2023-2027 has been launched by Minister of State for land use and biodiversity Pippa Hackett.

This consultation is to seek the views of all stakeholders and public on the key themes for the next round of EIPs before a call for proposals is launched later this year.

EIP projects are locally-led schemes which are designed and implemented by collaborative groups involving farmers, scientists, ecologists and other experts to deliver specific goals.

Suggestions

Minister Hackett said: “We have ring-fenced an indicative budget of €36m for this and we are now seeking suggestions for themes, which may be developed further for potential calls for proposals for EIPs later this year.

“Innovation is at the heart of addressing many of the challenges that we face, such as climate change, biodiversity, animal welfare and gender balance in the agriculture sector.

“EIP projects bring together a range of actors to trial and test innovations that may improve the environment, animal welfare and the livelihoods of those that work to provide quality food.

"We have scaled up the best of the outgoing EIPs into our larger-scale schemes such as ACRES,” Minister Hackett added.

Successful model

Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue said that the public consultation is an opportunity for farmers to inform the next EIP programme.

“EIPs have proven to be a really successful model of farming communities working together with other stakeholders, which now more than ever will be needed to drive innovation at local, rural, regional and national levels to our big environmental and agricultural challenges.

“The results from existing EIPs have informed the flagship agri-environmental scheme ACRES to include a significant results-based element to reward farmers for their environmental ambition and we hope the next round can be equally beneficial,” he said.

EIP projects are supported across two streams; A and B. Stream A projects will address wider competitiveness, modernisation and animal health and welfare challenges in the sector and/or, stream B will address areas related to environmental, biodiversity and climate change challenges.

The survey is open from Tuesday 23 May and will remain open until 11.59pm on Monday 12 June. The link to the survey can be found here.