20% of farmers in GLAS 1 yet to receive first payment

Some 20% of farmers in the first tranche of GLAS are yet to receive payment for year one of the scheme.

Some 26,500 farmers were approved under Tranche 1 and a further 11,500 were approved under Tranche 2 of GLAS.

According to the Department of Agriculture to date some 21,000 GLAS Tranche 1 (GLAS 1) farmers have received a first instalment of their 2015 part year payment in respect of payable actions for the period October 1 to December 31, representing up to 85% of the total amount due for the 2015 part year.

Responding to questioning from Fianna Fail’s Eamon O Cuiv, the Department also said the balancing payments are scheduled to be processed in May 2016 when all GLAS 2015 inspections have been completed.

This 2015 part-year balancing payment will include the GLAS+ payments for eligible applications, it said.

Part-year payments are purely in respect of actions that were applicable to 2015 and cannot be used as a basis to extrapolate the average value of a GLAS contract over a full year.

Farmers will only see the full value of their contracts when payments are calculated for 2016, the first full year of their five-year contracts.

A new scheme to grant-aid the conservation of traditional farm buildings on GLAS farms, has been announced.

New Scheme

The new scheme builds upon the success of the Traditional Farm Buildings Grant Scheme which operated under REPS 4 from 2007 to 2013 and ensured that more than 350 traditional farm buildings throughout Ireland were conserved.

GLAS is the new agri-environment scheme for Irish farmers, to which nearly 40,000 farmers have already signed-up, and this new element to that scheme will help ensure that small traditional farm buildings and other structures, which are of significant cultural and heritage value, are restored and conserved for renewed practical agricultural use.