The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) has confirmed to Agriland that the new Agri Climate Rural Environment Scheme (ACRES) is “on track” to open for applications early next month.
The department said that the farm planning portal for the €1.5 billion scheme is now fully operational.
Agricultural advisors can use the portal to create the Farm Sustainability Plans (FSP) required for all farmers who want to apply for the scheme due to come into effect from January 2023 with the new Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).
In August, “a stage 1 version” of the portal was opened to advisors for “demonstration purposes” and to enable the printing of farm maps.
“In preparation for the submission of ACRES applications advisors can now begin the process of developing FSPs using the GLAM portal,” a DAFM spokesperson said.
“The FSP must be submitted as part of the ACRES application. ACRES is on track to open in early October.”
Major concerns have been raised by private agricultural advisors in relation to the available timeframe to complete applications for farmers wanting to apply for the first tranche of the scheme.
Speaking to Agriland at the National Ploughing Championships, Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Charlie McConalogue said that he wants as many farmers as possible to “join up” to ACRES.
“It’s a big task over the next few months for agricultural advisors working with farmers to get as many applicants in as possible.
“I understand that frustration, people want schemes to be more straightforward than they are. I want them to be as straightforward as possible.
“But since its public money and European money, which is part of the overall CAP plan, it has to be delivering on those objectives and actually paying for certain measures.
“It’s a challenge, but I think it is manageable. I’m not underestimating that it won’t be without difficulty in terms of getting up and running,” he said.
McConalogue said that schemes in all countries under the new CAP must be “results-based in nature”.
“That’s a step change from the outgoing CAP where schemes were more about actions – if you did the action, the result wasn’t necessarily measured. Now it’s not so much about the action, it’s about what the result is and paying based on that.
“That’s the obligation on us, we don’t have wriggle room on that if we want to draw down that European CAP funding.”
“It’s something that’s going to be more of a challenge for farmers to adjust to, it’s more of a challenge certainly for advisors as well, but the objective in terms of the CAP is it puts the focus on what the outcomes are. We don’t have a choice but to work with that,” McConalogue continued.
“Certainly, as minister, I want to ensure it’s as practical as possible.
“Ultimately what I want to ensure here is that we have a good strong environmental scheme and other good strong schemes too which are paying significant funds to farmers, underpinning family farm incomes and which are as practical as possible in terms of the delivery,” the minister said.