28,000 Nutrient Management Plans required for GLAS balancing payments

In order to advance balancing GLAS payments, close to 28,000 applicants have been asked to ensure that their Nutrient Management Plans (NMPs) have been submitted.

Farmers who do not have their NMPs submitted to the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine – as part of their GLAS applications – are asked to do so by Thursday, June 15.

Out of approximately 35,000 applicants, around 28,000 NMPs are currently outstanding. Once this information is submitted, the department can begin the process of issuing balancing payments.

As it stands, approximately 95% of applicants to GLAS I and GLAS II have received 85% of their 2016 payment.

The Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Michael Creed, also recently revealed that close to 1,400 applicants have been asked to send on further information to advance their applications.

The department is working hard to move the remaining cases towards payment as quickly as possible, Minister Creed added.

In the latest payment run, over €528,000 was issued to 158 farmers; this equated to an average payment of approximately €3,342.

‘Last minute panic’

Meanwhile, the “last minute panic” to request this information by the department is typical of how the GLAS payments debacle has turned out so far, the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association’s (ICMSA’s) Pat Rohan said.

There is no other way to describe the 2017 payment situation for this scheme as other than a mess, Rohan added.

The chairperson of the ICMSA’s Farm And Rural Affairs Committee also encouraged farmers to get in touch with their planners, to ensure their NMP has been submitted.

The NMP must be submitted, by no later than this week, to allow the process of issuing balancing payments to begin, he concluded.

Farmers are advised to contact their GLAS planner in relation to the submission of the NMPs.

Commonages

Earlier this month, Minister Creed revealed that some GLAS applicants had still to submit either an Interim Commonage Management Plan or an Interim Commonage Farm Plan.

This information was required to allow the applicants’ 2016 payments to be processed; reminders were reportedly issued to over 300 applicants, that the required forms were still outstanding.

Last year, shares in just over 4,900 commonages were declared in Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) applications, Minister Creed said.

Some 9,000 shareholders have declared commonage on over 3,800 commonages in GLAS.

“Almost 6,500 shareholders in GLAS 1 and GLAS 2 were required to submit either an Interim Commonage Management Plan or an Interim Commonage Farm Plan to allow 2016 payments to be processed.

“There is no requirement for an interim commonage form for GLAS 3 commonage applicants,” he added.