The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) issued scheme payments to farmers worth over €5.3 million in the second week of January.
Data published by the department shows that €2.7 million was paid to farmers under the Basic Income Support for Sustainability (BISS) and Complimentary Redistributive Income Support for Sustainability (CRISS) in the week ending January 12.
DAFM said that 117,595 farmers have now received payments totaling €796.6 million under these schemes.
The overall figure also includes the 2023 Complementary Income Support for Young Farmers (€22.3 million) and 2023 National Reserve (€2.3 million) payments.
DAFM
DAFM said that a further €1.38 million was paid out last week under the 2023 Eco-Scheme.
115,311 farmers have now received over €293 million under the scheme which was introduced for the first time as part of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) Strategic Plan 2023-2027.
€800,000 was paid to farmers in the department’s second payment run of 2024 for the Areas of Natural Constraint (ANC) scheme.
While €450,526 was allocated to farmers who are now part of the Organic Farming Scheme (OFS).
Almost 3,600 farmers in OFS have received a total of €36.5 million for participating in the scheme.
The data shows that €20,000 in payments were made to farmers under the Straw Incorporation Measure (SIM).
In total, 2,850 farmers have now received over €13 million as part of this scheme.
DAFM noted that no farmers received payments last week under the new Targeted Agricultural Modernisation Schemes (TAMS 3).
ACRES
Meanwhile, the department has also issued an update on the progress of payments to farmers under the Agri-Climate Rural Environment Scheme (ACRES).
As of Wednesday, January 10, 9,500 ACRES General participants and 18,438 ACRES Co-operation (CP) participants were still waiting to receive an ACRES payment.
Over 17,100 ACRES General participants received payments of over €76 million in December 2023.
According to DAFM, the remaining 9,500 General participants will be issued their payments “early in 2024, subject to validation checks”.
The 18,400 CP participants will have to wait until February of this year to receive their payment.