Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Martin Heydon has announced the start of balancing payments to farmers for their participation in the Agri-Climate Rural Environment Scheme (ACRES) in 2024.

The balancing payments in respect of participation in ACRES in 2024 are worth €33.2 million, and will be paid to 42,444 participants.

The minister said this figure brings the amount paid to farmers for ACRES to €490 million since the scheme commenced in January 2023.

Payments for participation in ACRES are made in two phases - an advance payment, which may be paid from mid-October of the year in question, and a balancing payment, which follows by the end of June of the following year, according to the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine.

While the 2024 ACRES balancing payments have started, remaining payments in respect of 2023 and the 2024 ACRES advance payments will also continue to issue on a weekly basis as cases pass the required validation checks, the department said.

Minister Heydon commented: “While attention will naturally be focussed on the receipt of payments, I consider that we should acknowledge the contribution of farmers, through their participation in ACRES, towards a range of environmental, biodiversity, climate and water quality objectives.

"The achievements to date include the planting of 566,000 trees, 26,000 hectares under catch crops, and the protection of almost 9,000km of watercourses under the Riparian Zone action," he added.

The minister also noted that 7,000ha of land are providing a food source for birds throughout the autumn and winter, while 21,000 boxes have been built for barn owls and kestrels.

In addition, the area covered by results-based actions has increased from 80,000ha to more than 1.1 million hectares, and the number of farmers implementing such actions has increased tenfold.

"The €490 million paid out under ACRES to date is to compensate and reward participants for undertaking all of the actions within ACRES, which in turn contributes to achieving the stated objectives of the scheme," Minister Heydon said.