The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine has confirmed the process and dates for farmers to correct issues identified on their applications for the Basic Income Support for Sustainability (BISS).
The department said that letters are now issuing to farmers to notify them of any errors in their BISS applications that were identified through preliminary checks.
The possible non-compliance covered in the preliminary checks include:
- Overclaims, where the land in a 2023 application is greater than the eligible hectares associated with that applicant;
- Dual claims, where a land parcel has been declared by multiple applicants;
- Overlaps, where a portion of a land parcel declared by an applicant has also been declared by another applicant on their 2023 BISS application.
Where a farmer (or their agent) receives these letters, the department says that they should log-on to the agfood portal to respond.
The department confirmed a response deadline date of July 5. However, one such letter, seen by Agriland, identified a deadline of June 30.
It is understood that the date of June 30, appeared on many letters that were issued to farmers, according to sources based in the southwest of the country.
Meanwhile, the department has also confirmed that notifications in relation to the Area Monitoring System (AMS), will begin issuing to farmers next week.
This is the satellite inspection system used by the department in detecting certain ineligible features.
The first round of AMS notifications are for the potential presence of artificial surfaces in land parcels, such as buildings, farmyard extensions, and farm roadways.
Farmers will have until July 10, to respond to these notifications, the department said.
Further rounds of AMS notifications are due to issue later in the year.
According to the department, these preliminary checks and AMS notifications allow the farmer the opportunity to rectify issues with their BISS application without penalty.
Farmers and advisors should check the correspondence section of their BISS online account.
Where a farmer is signed up for text message alerts, a text will issue to advise them that they have a notification on their BISS account.