The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) is now accepting applications for the Basic Income Support for Sustainability (BISS) and other area-related schemes.

Under the new Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), the Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) has been replaced by the BISS.

According to the department, the new scheme is "designed to provide a direct income support to Irish farmers to underpin their continued sustainability and viability".

Applications must be submitted online through agfood.ie by the deadline of midnight on Monday, May 29, 2023.

This is also the closing date for the transfer of entitlements.

Following the closing date, farmers can amend their application without incurring a penalty until June 14, 2023.

Under the new scheme farmers will be paid per hectare of eligible land farmed and for which they hold entitlements; this is called an eligible hectare.

The maximum rate that farmers could be paid per hectare is determined by the value of the entitlements they have.

In terms of eligibility criteria, DAFM says eligible beneficiaries are required to:

Submit a BISS application each year via the online application system, declaring their farmland located within the jurisdiction of Ireland;
Meet the minimum requirements to receive a direct payment as will be defined under Article 15 (a) of the CAP Strategic Plan regulations;
Meet the definition of an “active farmer”;
Hold one BISS payment entitlement for each eligible hectare claimed.

The maximum payment that will be granted to any one farmer under the BISS, in any one scheme year, is capped at an effective rate of €66,000.

No payment will be made under the scheme where the amount is less than €100.

The department has said that an advance payment under the BISS may be made in October, with balancing payments commencing in December.

Farmers may also apply through the BISS application for the following schemes:

Eco-Scheme;
Complementary Redistributive Income Support for Sustainability (CRISS);
Complementary Income Support for Young Farmers Scheme (CIS-YF);
Protein Aid;
Areas of Natural Constraints (ANC);
Straw Incorporation Measure (SIM);
Agri-climate Rural Environment Scheme (ACRES) – annual claim if already approved;
Organic Farming Scheme (OFS) –annual claim if already approved into the scheme.

However, the 46,000 farmers who applied for the new ACRES scheme are still waiting to hear from the department if they have been accepted.

Under Budget 2023, funding was provided for 30,000 places in the scheme.

Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Charlie McConalogue has repeatedly said that it is his desire to have all farmers who applied accepted into the scheme this year.

An update on the scheme had been due from the minister in February.