merrion street

Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Food & the Marine, Andrew Doyle T.D., today announced the approval of 52 new Knowledge Transfer Groups (KTGs) for forest owners. This follows the recent announcement by the Minister inviting expressions of interest to establish such groups which have now been assessed and the successful groups selected. Successful applications have been received for 52 KT groups which will have the capacity for over 1,000 participants.

Minister Doyle said that

I am delighted to see the huge level of interest shown in these Forestry KTGs scheme and to announce that we are funding all successful applications. These groups will facilitate best practice and shared learning and aim to fill an identified knowledge gap in the forestry sector. I look forward to seeing them develop over time and to them adding value for private forest owners and for the Irish forestry sector as a whole.

The group organisers will now be notified by DAFM of their acceptance into the scheme and can then move to the next stage of recruiting participants, facilitators and setting up groups. KTGs in the forestry sector are being established to address barriers to timber mobilisation by encouraging higher levels of forest management activity.

The groups will operate on a ‘bottom-up’ approach with members identifying topics they wish to cover. Participants will then learn from the experts and from each other within a discussion group setting, which may be complemented by field trips and seminars. Today’s announcement covers the intake for the 2018 KTG scheme. It is proposed to re-open the scheme in 2019 for another intake of applicants. The establishment of the KTGs is one of the key initiatives under the mid-term Review of the DAFM national Forestry programme 2014-2020.


Editor Notes

Further details can be found on the DAFM website at: https://www.agriculture.gov.ie/forestservice/grantsandpremiumschemes2015-2018/

KTG participation
Each KTG can have a maximum of 20 participants and each participant will need to attend 7 meetings or outdoor events in order to complete the programme.

KTG payments
KTG payments are broken down as follows;

Payee                           Reimbursement/grant payment per                         €
KTG Participant           Meeting attended                                           €70 per meeting
KTG Organiser            Per KTG organised                                       €6,500 per KTG

A total of seven meetings and events will be organised per KTG - the maximum payment to each participant is €490.