The online portal for the Low Emission Slurry Spreading (LESS) action under the Agri Climate Rural Environment Scheme (ACRES) for 2025 is currently open.

The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) confirmed that the annual declaration can be completed by an ACRES adviser on behalf of their client or by the ACRES participant themselves.

The LESS return must be completed on the portal by October 31, 2025.

The department said that failure to complete and submit the LESS return will result in a delay in making the 2025 ACRES advance payment and may result in the rejection of the LESS action from an ACRES contract.

The final spreading date for slurry was September 30, 2025, with the closed period commencing from October 1.DAFM reminded farmers and their advisers that the following requirements apply to the LESS action:

Holdings must have a grassland stocking rate of less than 100kg nitrogen (N) per hectare from grazing livestock manure prior to export of livestock manure;
All the slurry applied on the farm (produced and/or imported) must, for each year of the contract, be spread by one or a combination of: band spreading, injection systems, and trailing shoe;
Pig slurry is not eligible for payment under this action. Only slurry produced on the holding (excluding pig slurry) is eligible for payment;
Participants must retain, and provide if requested, documentary evidence to confirm the spreading method used, and the volumes spread on the holding;
The minimum volume of slurry that must be applied on the holding each year of the contract using one of the above listed methods is 50m³. DAFM noted that 1m³ is equal to 1,000L (220gal);
The participant or their approved ACRES adviser must submit a completed annual slurry declaration return to the department on the online portal;
Only parcels with an eligible hectare >0 claimed on BISS 2025 will be available on the drop-down menu;
Volume produced and volume imported must be entered in separate fields and at least one of the fields must be filled in;
Multiple spread events on the same parcel can be input.

The department added that it is not required to enclose receipts when completing the form.

However, the receipts must be kept by the participant with their record sheets and be made available for any inspection.

Meanwhile, the latest data published by DAFM shows that almost €516.7 million had been paid by September 29 to ACRES participants.

Of this total, over €267.1 million is in respect of participation in the scheme in 2024, while over €249.5 million relates to participation in 2023.

More than 97% of all farmers are now fully paid in respect of their participation in the scheme in 2023 and 2024.

The department is continuing to progress the contracts awaiting final payment in respect of 2023 and/or advance payment in respect of 2024.

125,000 scorecards were issued at the beginning of June 2025, of which 117,122 were submitted by September 29.

The deadline for the submission of completed scorecards was August 31 to allow advance payments to be made in November 2025.

DAFM said it has followed up with ACRES advisers to submit outstanding scorecards as soon as possible.

Applications may also now be submitted for Non-Productive Investments (NPIs) for farmers in the ACRES Co-operation (CP) approach.

The deadline for submission of applications in this third NPI application window is October 17, 2025.

Claims may now be submitted in respect of NPIs approved following the first two NPIs application windows, with 550 claims submitted to date.