The Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine has said there are “no plans” to amend the timeframe of the Shannon Callows Flood Scheme.
Minister Charlie McConalogue also confirmed that there are no plans to extend the locations covered by the scheme.
According to the minister, the scheme was designed to support farmers who had lost fodder due to flooding in the Shannon Callows area last summer.
In response to a parliamentary question raised this week by Independent TD, Seán Canney, Minister McConalogue said he had allocated funding of approximately €800,000 for farmers in the Shannon Callows special area of conservation.
The payment rate to each farmer was €325ha.
The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine’s (DAFM) earth observation team used the area monitoring system to identify which farmers within the Shannon Callows SAC who had grassland parcels claimed on their 2023 Basic Income Support for Sustainability (BISS) application had been affected by flooding.
Shannon Callows
The department then analysed which of these grassland parcels had been flooded “on at least six of the 30 occurrences that the area monitoring system looked at between July 2, 2023 and September 29, 2023”.
DAFM estimated that in the region of 2,500ha of grassland had been impacted by flooding. Some land parcels along the River Suck and the Little Brosna river were also included in the 2,500ha.
According to latest figures from DAFM by January 19, 97% or 268 of the 277 applications submitted for the Shannon Callows Flood Scheme had been returned, processed and received €736,398 on a total of 2,266ha.
Fodder
Meanwhile, one third of farmers who took part in a snap Agriland survey last month indicated have said they are now running short of fodder.
At least 33% of farmers who took part in the survey will at some stage have to purchase fodder.
A total of 769 farmers said they are running short on fodder, while 1,560 said had sufficient supplies.
But 769 farmers also indicated that they would need to buy-in fodder, while 1,587 respondents said they would not.