One of the aims of Finnish government is to improve the status of water bodies in the Archipelago Sea catchment area. The environmental pressure caused by livestock farming can be reduced by developing innovative solutions for nutrient recycling.
In order to enable this, there is an appropriation of EUR 6.5 million, in total, available from the Rural Development Programme for Mainland Finland for support to water protection and nutrient recycling for 2015-2017. The aim is to promote the recycling of nutrients through broad-based coordination and cooperation projects that bring together different kinds of actors.
Individual funding can be applied for in the regions of six coastal provinces : Southwest Finland, Uusimaa, Satakunta, South Ostrobothnia, Ostrobothnia and North Ostrobothnia.
Funding will be granted todevelopment projects and to SME’s as business aid that promote water protection and nutrient recycling. The projects must be broad-based in terms of operations and impacts, and several project operators must participate in them.
Priority is given to measures that
• promote water protection in areas where the state of the water bodies is defined as substandard in the water management plans,
• promote nutrient recycling, in particular, the full utilisation of manure and other agricultural nutrient flows,
• promote the new practices or
• generate permanent cooperation in order to attain the objectives.
The projects funded must meet the selection criteria for the measure in question in the Rural Development Programme and the specific criteria for water conservation and nutrient recycling. The projects will be evaluated and scored on the basis of the selection criteria in the processing of the applications.
The selection criteria are available on the Finnish Agency for Rural Affairs’ website:
www.mavi.fi (in Finnish)
Public funding is a fixed percentage, 60%, 80% or 100% of the total reasonable costs. As a rule, the projects are required to have a 20% share of private funding.
Support applications will be accepted on a continuous basis, but the applications will be processed during a selection period, three times a year.
Applications can be filled in the electronic Hyrrä system, where they can be modified and specified if necessary. The decisions and comments by the financier will also be made available promptly in the electronic Hyrrä system.
Applications are processed by a coordination group, comprising representatives from the regional administrations of all six provinces that receive funding and other parties who play key roles in terms of coordination and effectiveness. The funding decisions are prepared either by the regional administrative (ELY Centre) or, for projects involving a broader area of implementation, by the ELY Centre for Southwest Finland, which is also responsible for the coordination of special funding.
Further information:
Southwest Finland ELY Centre (in Finnish)
Mirja Koskinen, Head of Unit, mirja.koskinen(at)ely-keskus.fi, tel. +358 295 022 886
Seppo Jaakonmäki, Development Manager, seppo.jaakonmaki(at)ely-keskus.fi, tel. +358 295 022 573
