The Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers’ Association (ICMSA) has welcomed the decision to carry out a review of the Agri-Climate Rural Environment Scheme (ACRES).
Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Charlie McConalogue confirmed last week that the review will take place over the coming months with a “with a view to coming to a conclusion by the end of the year”.
Officials at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) have been asked to meet with farm organisations, FAS advisors and the ACRES Co-operation (CP) teams to seek their views.
ACRES
The deputy president of ICMSA, Eamon Carroll, said there is “a real lack of confidence in ACRES” at present and that “trust and belief in the scheme needs to be instilled”.
Otherwise, he warned that the scheme will not only “fizzle out” in the coming years, but it could erode the enthusiasm of farmers for participation in future schemes.
“ICMSA acknowledge the ‘bandwidth’ that the ACRES scheme is covering, and we have tried to be positive about the scheme from the start.
“The undeniable facts are that the scheme has underperformed and has fallen well short of what was going to be required, both in terms of administration and payments.
“It’s just been wholly inadequate and has never really established itself as the kind of ‘flagship’ agri-environmental scheme it was meant to be – and which farmers would have welcomed,” he said.
Review
Carroll, who also chairs the ICMSA Farm and Rural Affairs committee, described ACRES as “a very poor relation of the Rural Environment Protection Scheme (REPS) in terms of payments”.
“If ACRES is to be rescued, then it needs a full review around every facet and we are certain that any such review must involve farmers and advisors.
“If ICMSA is going to participate in such a review – and we would be happy to do so – then we’ll want an assurances that all the recommendations arising from such a review will be implemented.
“The department cannot ask us all for diagnose what’s wrong with ACRES and then pick and choose which the solutions to the problems identified,” he said.
The ICMSA deputy president said that ACRES had been “plagued by problems since it was launched”, but he still believed that there “was a good scheme in there trying to get out”.
“We do think it’s rescuable and more to the point – we think it could be improved in a way that made it workable for the intensive farmers who are the group who the department should be trying to bring in.
“We think that they are looking for an environmental scheme and we think that ACRES could be reformed in a way that would appeal to them,” Carroll added.