Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Charlie McConalogue has ruled out the possibility of extending the Unharvested Crop Loss Support Scheme.
277 applications were made to the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) under the scheme, which was created to provide financial support to farmers in recognition of the losses incurred with unharvested cereal crops.
Financial assistance under the scheme was made available from the €8 million once-off Ukraine related funding provided in Budget 2024 for the tillage sector.
The scheme opened for applications on November 16 and farmers who wished to avail of the support had to submit applications by close of business on November 24.
The aid was available to all growers who were unable to harvest cereal crops due to wet weather in September and October.
The payment rate under the measure was €1,000/ha on a minimum 2ha up to a maximum eligible area of 20ha.
Scheme
Independent TD for Laois Offaly Carol Nolan said that she was contacted by a number of “distressed tillage farmers” who said they were given no notice that a support scheme was in existence.
In a parliamentary question, Deputy Nolan asked Minister McConalogue to outline the efforts he had made to ensure that the maximum number of tillage farmers were made aware of support.
She also sought an extension to the application deadline to ensure maximum access to the scheme.
Minister McConalogue said that DAFM had issued a press release when the scheme was opened.
“While I appreciate that the period for submitting applications was relatively short, it was necessary to allow sufficient time for my officials to process applications and for the necessary inspections to be carried out to enable payments to be made in January 2024,” he said.
“In view of the very short window to administer the scheme and to have payments made by the 31 January deadline, it is not possible for my department to extend the deadline for applications,” the minister added.
Deputy Nolan said that confirmation that the support scheme will not be reopened will “lead to profound disappointment and anger from many tillage farmers who feel they had a legitimate claim for financial support”.
“I accept that the window for applications needed to be tight in order to secure financial support from the EU Agricultural Reserve, but a window of just one week is quite frankly ridiculous.
“I am calling on the minister to immediately explore all other options where financial support can be provided to tillage farmers.
“As it stands the situation is grossly unfair and we must find some way of creating access to supports for those farmers who missed out or never even heard of the scheme in the first place,” she said.