Farmers “around the country” are still fearful of missing deadlines under the Agri Climate Rural Environment Scheme (ACRES) due to challenging weather conditions, according to the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA).
Michael Biggins, the chairperson of the association’s Rural Development Committee, has called on the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine to show maximum flexibility where farmers are unable to meet their commitments under the scheme due to the weather.
This follows extensions to a number of measures already granted by the department.
“We are getting calls from farmers around the country, who, because of late sowing and challenging weather conditions, have yet to harvest cereal crops and will likely miss ACRES deadlines as a result,” Biggins said.
“In fairness to the department, it extended the original deadlines two weeks for the growing of catch crops, but things haven’t improved much since, as we saw at the ploughing last week, and with Storm Agnes on its way tomorrow (Wednesday, September 26), ground conditions will get worse before they get better.”
Biggins added: “The challenges for those farmers in ACRES should not be compounded by penalties, and partial or no ACRES payment received for non-compliance.
“It’s outside of the farmers’ control and the department needs to show understanding and flexibility here,” the IFA rural development chair said.
The department recently issued an extension to six arable actions under ACRES.
The department sent a circular to ACRES advisors to inform them that the deadline for specific arable-based actions has been extended to Saturday, September 30.
The department said as a result of the “prolonged adverse weather conditions”, that “an extension has been granted to the establishment deadline for the following actions”.
These actions are:
- Catch crops;
- Environmental management of arable fallow (catch crop element only);
- Geese and swans – arable (catch crop element only);
- Grass margins – arable;
- Protection and maintenance of archaeological monuments – arable;
- Riparian buffer strips/zones – arable.
This extension applies to 2023 only.
These deadlines extensions followed earlier criticism from Biggins, who had called on the department to “revisit” the deadlines in place because of challenging sowing conditions in many parts of the country.
He had asked the department “to push the deadline out for a few weeks to let the ground dry up and give impacted farmers some breathing space”.