The actions that farmers can undertake under the Agri Climate Rural Environment Scheme (ACRES) are beginning to emerge.
Department officials revealed the actions to a recent meeting of sector stakeholders, including farm organisations.
It is understood that the exact specifications of the actions, as well as the payment rates, will be made known to stakeholders in the coming days.
The ACRES programme will come into effect from January 2023 as part of the new Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), replacing the Green, Low-Carbon Agri-Environment Scheme (GLAS).
The measures that were outlined are actions that individual farmers can take as part of the ACRES General approach. The higher-paying ACRES Co-operation approach – open to farmers in eight co-operation project (CP) areas – is likely to involve larger scale actions involving other farmers in the area.
In ACRES General, participants will be divided into three tiers, depending on the environmental priority of their land. Some actions will be mandatory for farmers in tiers one and two.
The actions to be taken are outlined below:
- Area-based actions:
- Winter bird food plot;
- Over winter stubble;
- Environmental management of arable fallow;
- Minimum tillage (‘min-till’);
- Catch crops;
- Management of intensive grassland next to a watercourse;
- Tree belt for ammonia capture at farmyard;
- Brassica fodder stubble;
- Low-input grassland (results based);
- Low-input peat grassland (results based);
- Commonage;
- Extensively grazed pasture;
- Riparian buffer zone (arable or grassland);
- Maintaining geese and swan habitats.
- Whole farm actions:
- Low emission slurry spreading (LESS);
- Conservation of rare breeds.
- Linear actions:
- Unharvested cereal headlands;
- Grass margins (arable);
- Grass margins (grassland);
- Winter bird food strip;
- Hedgerow rejuvenation coppicing;
- Hedgerow rejuvenation laying;
- Traditional dry stone wall maintenance;
- Planting new hedgerows;
- Ryegrass seed set for birds;
- Riparian buffer strip (arable or grassland).
- Unit based actions:
- Tree planting;
- Tree planting in riparian buffer zones;
- Planting a traditional orchard;
- Barn owl box;
- Protection and maintenance of archaeological monuments (grassland or arable).
Farmers in tier one will be those with priority environmental assets (PEAs) on their land. For these participants, action relevant to the PEA on their farm will be mandatory.
These PEAs are:
- Private Natura;
- Commonage;
- Geese and swan areas;
- Breeding wader mapped areas;
- Catchments identified as having high status water (actions will be appropriate to local needs);
- Rare breed habitats.
Apart from these PEAs, registered organic farmers will automatically qualify for tier one.
Tier two farmers will also undertake at least some mandatory actions. Participants whose lands include a recognised valuable water area will qualify for this tier.
Applicants may also be considered for tier two if they are a participant in the Native Woodland Establishment Scheme; are receiving a grant for agroforestry; or if they commit to undertaking one of the tree planting actions.
If a farmer does not meet the above criteria for tier two, they can still qualify for that tier if they have a whole farm stocking rate of over 130kg of livestock manure nitrogen per hectare (N/ha) produced on the holding; or have more than 30ha of arable crops.
In this case, the farmer must take one of the following actions: Min-till, catch crops, over-winter stubble; grass margins (arable or grassland as the case may be); low-input peat grassland.
It is understood that tier three will be open to all other farmers participating in the ACRES General approach. It is envisaged that some 30,000 farmers will take part in ACRES General.
A breakdown of payment rates by actions is expected to be revealed to stakeholders in the near future. The maximum payment in one scheme year of ACRES General is €7,311, with an envisaged average payment of €5,000.