The administration costs of schemes under the new Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) for 2023 to 2027 is an area of concern for one farm organisation, who raised the issue in a meeting with ministers at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine.

The Irish Natura and Hill Farmers’ Association (INHFA) was one of several farm organisations to meet this week with Minister Charlie McConalogue, as well as Ministers of State Martin Heydon and Pippa Hackett.

At the meeting, the INHFA delegation told the ministers that “farmers must be the top priority on the design of any new scheme”.

Colm O’Donnell, the association’s president, noted that the INHFA had concerns over the drafting of the proposed Agri-Environment Climate Measure (AECM), which will build on the current Rural Environment Agri Pilot Programme (REAP).

The INHFA also discussed the proposed Suckler Carbon Efficiency Programme and “delivering a fairer CAP” through convergence and front-loaded redistribution payments.

“Through our assessment of the proposed AECM there appears to be a significant change in how these schemes will operate, with the focus now on delivery of results as opposed to previous agri-environmental schemes that focused on actions,” O’Donnell highlighted.

He continued: “In a results based model, there will be a much higher management requirement as illustrated through the various EIPs (European Innovation Partnerships) and locally-led projects.

“In these projects, a major part of this management is assessing the individual contribution from farmers. While this is manageable where participation levels are quite low the delivery at a national level is very questionable.”

Furthermore, O’Donnell highlighted, with potentially 60,000 farmers in the new AECM, there is “a genuine concern that a high percentage of the budget could be spent on administration, with planners and advisors to continually assess if farmers are delivering the results expected”.

“When we consider that the planning and administration costs for GLAS [Green, Low-Carbon Agri-Environment Scheme] are currently running at approximately 5%, there is a danger that even with an increased budget, farmers could end up doing a lot more for considerably less,” the INHFA president added.

He argue that farmers who are currently delivering an environmental outcome should get access and are rewarded accordingly.

“We cannot see a repeat of GLAS where farmers on our private hills and lowland high nature value farmers were excluded despite delivering in terms of environmental output,” O’Donnell remarked.

The INHFA also called for commonage farmers to get access to the AECM individually and for an improved budget for the scheme, offering a higher payment.