Payments for non-productive investments (NPIs) to farmers participating in the Co-operation Project (CP) stream of the Agri Climate Rural Environment Scheme (ACRES) are expected to commence by "early October at the latest".

That's according to Paul Savage, a senior official at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, who spoke at a meeting of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture and Food this week.

Under ACRES, farmers in the CP section of the scheme can undertake NPIs to enhance their payments.

NPIs are small-scale environmental actions available to farmers in ACRES CP which support "nature-friendly management" of farms.

NPIs are applied for on behalf of farmers by their ACRES advisor as part of an NPI 'Annual Works Plan' (AWP).

According to the department, completing approved NPIs allows a farmer to add to their ACRES payment by up to a maximum of €17,500 over the five-year period of their contract.

There has been two application windows for farmers to apply for NPIs; one in 2023 and one last year.

However, the payments system to support the submission of claims and the processing of payments in respect of approved NPI applications is not yet in place.

Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Martin Heydon told the Oireachtas committee in late May that the payments system would be up and running by "September at the latest", though he did not specify if this timeline reflected the ability of farmers to make payment claims for NPIs undertaken, or the actual time that payments would issue for those actions.

The department issued further clarity on that timeline this week, with Savage telling the committee that it is expected it will be possible to make payment claims from mid-July, with payments to begin issuing in early October.

He said: "As regards ACRES non-productive investments, members will be aware that the first two tranches of applicants received their decision letters between December 2024 and April 2025, and work on these [NPIs] is underway on the ground.

Savage said the department is also "looking ahead" to opening the next tranche for NPI applications later this year.

The other main sources of payment for farmers in the ACRES CP stream are landscape actions (LAs).

These are targeted measures that will focus on issues such as invasive species management, encroaching scrub, threatened species, and water quality protection, thereby "offering benefits to the local environment", according to the department.

ACRES farmers have not yet had the opportunity to apply for these actions. However, Savage told the committee that the department "expects to be able to open for applications in the next few weeks".

Approval letters would then follow later this year, with payments expected to commence in 2026, he said.