The Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) is calling on Minister for Agriculture, Food and Marine Charlie McConalogue to deliver the highest possible level of Areas of Natural Constraints (ANC) Scheme payments to as many participants as possible.
John Curran, the association’s national rural development chairperson, has called on the minister to avail of European Commission-approved flexibilities and ensure maximum payments are delivered on time to all farmers, starting this week with ANC Scheme payments.
The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine has confirmed to Agriland that ANC Scheme advance payments will begin this week, at a rate of 85%.
Last week, the commission announced that it had authorised member states to make higher levels of advance payments under schemes funded by the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), in order to address cash-flow issues on-farm.
EU member states can now provide up to 70% of direct payments in advance from October 16, compared with 50% currently.
Similarly, advance payments for area and animal-based interventions under rural development – or CAP Pillar II schemes – can be increased by up to 85%, instead of the usual 75%.
Curran said: “Ireland has availed of this flexibility in recent years, and Minister McConalogue needs to do so again and ensure maximum payments are delivered to farmers on time this year.
ANC payments are set to get underway this week. However, the IFA said that cashflow is becoming more and more of a problem on many farms across all sectors.
“Minister McConalogue needs to ensure there are no hold-ups with payments, and in the upcoming [Budget 2025], he needs to land a series of targeted measures to support the most vulnerable farm sectors,” Curran said.
Curran said that delayed payments, and recouped interim payments, under the Agri Climate Rural Environment Scheme (ACRES) are compounding this cash flow problems for farmers, particularly those farming on hills and who have special areas of conservation (SAC).
“The department needs to deliver on its commitment that maximum flexibility will apply to farmers needing to [repay] some or all of ACRES interim payments received, and that at least 95% of outstanding balancing ACRES payments will be paid out by end-September,” the IFA rural development chairperson said.
“There are a particular cohort of ACRES applicants too, fewer than three hundred in total, that have received no ACRES payment at all. Some arrangement needs to be made for these farmers,” he added.
“They cannot always be at the end of the queue to be sorted out and paid, often times not knowing where they stand. These farmers entered [ACRES] in good faith, so need to be paid in good time also,” Curran said.
ANC Scheme payments
The department has confirmed to Agriland that it will commence payments to farmers on Wednesday (September 18) with the ANC Scheme, and that it is intended to make this payment at a rate of 85%.
Basic Income Support for Sustainability (BISS) and Complimentary Redistributive Income Support for Sustainability (CRISS) payments will commence issuing on October 16 at the rate of 70%, the same rate applied over the past several years.
Eco-scheme payments will commence issuing from October 23, also at a rate of 70%. All of these rates are provided for in the regulation change announced by the commission, the department said.
Other payments may issue as a single payment similar to previous years and according to the Farmers’ Charter of Rights, the department added.