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Minister for Agriculture Food and the Marine, Michael Creed T.D. today announced the award of over  €1.8 million in grants to 19 seafood enterprises under the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund (EMFF) Operational Programme for the seafood sector.  The grants are co-funded by the Exchequer and the EMFF. 

Minister Creed said, “Against the Brexit backdrop  and its potential implications for our food exports, I am particularly pleased to see so many seafood enterprises continuing to invest in growing their production, developing new consumer products and growing and diversifying markets, something I witnessed first hand during my recent Trade Mission to the Gulf States. My Department’s EMFF seafood development programme is providing a suite of 3 development schemes for our seafood processing sector that aim to incentivize seafood innovation and new product development, support capital investment in state of the art equipment to add value to raw material and to give processors the tools to diversify and develop their export markets. 

In this first of a series of grant approvals for 2017, grant aid of almost €900,000 has been awarded to 7 seafood processors supporting in excess of €3 million in value adding capital investment, while grant aid of €824,000 has been awarded to 8 aquaculture enterprises supporting capital investment of €2.8 million that will directly contribute to growing output from these farms in the coming years and help achieve the ambitious sustainable growth targets we have set for our aquaculture sector”.  

Minister Creed added, “I have provided Bord Iascaigh Mhara (BIM) with €26 million of EMFF funds in 2017 and I expect to announce many more awards as the year progresses”.

Further details of the EMFF Operational Programme are available at www.agriculture.gov.ie/emff, while further details of the Schemes concerned are available at http://www.bim.ie/schemes.These grant awards contribute to the Action Plan for Rural Development.