The payment system for non-productive investments (NPIs) under the Agri-Climate Rural Environment Scheme (ACRES) will not be operational until next year.
The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) has said it “regrets the delays in issuing approvals to the almost 4,300 ACRES participants who submitted NPI applications at the end of 2023″.
According to the department, NPIs and landscape actions provide ACRES Co-operation (CP) participants with an opportunity to improve environmental outcomes on their farms and the scores achieved under the results-based system, and in turn increase their payments.
In addition to their maximum core annual payment of €7,000, CP participants have the opportunity to draw down additional payments of up to €17,500 through carrying out certain actions.
ACRES
However, many farmers in ACRES have been left frustrated by the delay in processing NPI applications.
The department has now said “it is intended that approvals in respect of applications received at the end of 2023 will issue by the end of 2024”.
The system to support the submission of claims and the processing of payments in respect of these approved investments will follow as early as possible in 2025, DAFM added.
A second NPI application window is due to open on September 17, 2024 and run until the end of October.
Approvals will issue for this round will issue next spring after the screening of applications has been completed by Co-operation Project (CP) Teams and the department.
DAFM said that preparatory work ahead of the introduction of landscape actions is ongoing, and will include specification and costing of actions as well as the carrying out of an Appropriate Assessment (AA), as required under environmental legislation.
“Rollout is currently estimated to take place during the second and third quarter (Q2-Q3) of 2025,” the department said.
Work is also ongoing on the preparation of the landscape (high achievement) bonus payment.
This will enable farmers to be rewarded for high average scores across their private land within CP zones, or where they have a large area of land within the CP zone.
The department said that this bonus payment will be backdated/applied to the full period of participation in ACRES.
Scorecards
Meanwhile, the department has also issued an update on the processing and issuing of scorecards to ACRES participants.
Some 30,000 ACRES tranche 1 contracts across both the General (11,700) and Co-operation (18,300) streams contain results-based actions requiring the submission of scorecards.
The department said that following completion of scoring and the calculation/issuing of payments, a summary report outlining the scores on each parcel, together with management recommendations for improvement, is made available to the relevant ACRES participants.
On August 23, summary reports outlining 2023 commonage scorecard results were made available to 6,266 ACRES participants and their advisors through the Agfood online portal.
This represents just over 60% of contracts with the commonage action, according to DAFM.
The department said that printed copies of these reports will also be posted to participants this month.
The department said that summary reports outlining 2023 scores for all other results-based actions in both ACRES General and Co-operation are also available on AgFood.
These 24,373 reports (12,057 General and 12,316 Co-operation) are on AgFood with 21,227
posted to participants and the remaining 3,146 being posted shortly.
Summary reports for farmers receiving their balancing payment in September will
continue to issue as the 2023 payments are finalised.
The department said that scoring in 2024 “has been proceeding as expected”.
More than 81,000 scorecards were issued earlier in the year (24% to ACRES General and 76% to ACRES Co-operation participants).
The deadline for completion was August 31, but given poor recent weather conditions, the department confirmed to advisors that it would allow a further seven days for submission, without penalty.