Reminder on rural grants

John Rossiter, of Halls' Professional Department, Shrewsbury, reminds farmers that the new rural grant schemes are now open to applications.

The former ERDP, which ran until 2006, has now been renamed the RDPE (Rural Development Programme for England) and will be implemented next January.

"It appears that funding for the next six year period has been more than doubled over the original first phase, thanks largely to the process of modulation, although there are concerns that this may still not be enough to meet all the demands that are likely to be made on it, especially for forestry.

"Eighty per cent is earmarked for individual projects, such as on-farm environmental schemes and woodland planting or management, and the remainder is for rural development, training and improvement.

"This latter category comes under the restyled leader scheme, which is administered by the Regional Development agencies and implemented through Regional Implementation Plans that are currently being drawn up by local action groups around the country," he says.

He points out that individual schemes are now focused on stewardship and forestry. The Entry Level Scheme (ELS) remains open to all farmers and landowners.

The funding for the Higher Level Scheme (HLS) has been increased by over 40 per cent and so should be more readily available than before, although it will still be competitive.

Funds for the new English Woodland Grant Schemes are limited to £190m for the entire period to 2013 and are likely, therefore, to be just as competitive as last year. One raft of significant grant programmes has been discontinued, namely the Rural Enterprise Scheme (RES), the Vocational Training Scheme (VTS) and the Processing and Marketing Grant (PMG), he says.

"The emphasis seems now to be more on funding projects that will benefit the wider rural community rather than helping individual farmers or groups of farmers to develop their own diversification schemes.

"The Energy Crop Scheme (ECS) has just been reduced by 30 per cent.

"The whole of the REDP remains provisional until it has been formally ratified by the EU, probably by the beginning of next year", he adds.