Confusion exists around the impact of turf cutting on eligibility and payments for farmers under the new Agri-Climate Rural Environmental Scheme (ACRES), according to a Sinn Féin TD.
As a result, Rose Conway-Walsh has called on Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Charlie McConalogue to clarify scoring under the scheme for farmers with commonage land where there is active turf cutting.
46,230 farmers across the country applied for the €1.5 billion agri-environmental scheme.
Minister McConalogue confirmed last month that all valid applications would be given a place in Tranche 1.
ACRES
“As we know there has been a large uptake of new ACRES scheme among farmers in Mayo and along the western seaboard. The amount of money received by farmers will largely be determined by the scoring of their fields for biodiversity,” Deputy Conway-Walsh said.
“A lot of farmers in the west will be relying on commonage and mountain lands to generate these scores where parcels are marked out of 10.
“An issue has arisen with the scoring of mountain land where active turf cutting means all farmers on that commonage will lose marks even if the turf cutter with the turbary rights is not one of those farmers.”
The Mayo TD claimed that the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) is currently advising that active turf cutting on a parcel of land will result in a 30% reduction in scoring.
“This means these parcels will now be marked out of 7 and a score of 4 or more has to be achieved in order to get any payment,” she said.
Turf
Deputy Conway-Walsh said that most commonage land will have active turf cutting and a 30% reduction for all shareholders would result in a drastic reduction in payments for farmers.
“It is now the time of year when people are getting ready to cut turf and they are unsure how this will affect ACRES payments. They may decide not to cut but find that others will do so leading to all payments being reduced.
“The minister must move immediately to clarify this situation and implement a sensible approach,” she said.
“Previous schemes like the Wild Atlantic Nature Scheme mapped the area of mountain being cut and excluded that from scoring while the rest of the mountain parcel was scored normally.
“Farmers are responsible custodians of their lands and are making huge efforts to embrace biodiversity and tackle climate change. They need clarity and certainty of income to play their part,” the TD said.