Some of the key details of the Department’s new Knowledge Transfer measure under the Rural Development Programme 2014-2020 have been announced.

The Scheme hopes to take in 27,000 farmers and its design has been guided by experiences from previous Dairy Advisory Schemes and Beef and Sheep Discussion Groups and following extensive consultation with a wide range of stakeholders.

The scheme is designed in such a way as to ensure the farmer and advisor engage in one to one discussion on key aspects of a farmers’ business such as profitability, environmental sustainability, breeding and herd health.

The Department has said as experiences to date have shown that there are significant benefits to group meetings each participant will be required to attend a minimum of 5 knowledge exchange meetings/4 meetings and one national event, facilitated by a DAFM-approved advisor.

Participating farmers will be paid a total of €750 annually for each of the three years they successfully complete. This funding is based on the standard cost approach recommended by the Commission and represents a 50% increase in payments under BTAP/STAP.

The payment to the advisor will be €500 per farmer per year – paid directly by DAFM to individual advisors.

The Department has said while this represents an increase in the average advisor payment under the Discussion Group model, it reflects the fact that the advisors will be required to spend a total of 12 hours over the period of the programme directly engaging with the farmer in the completion and updating of the FIP.

Furthermore, it says the advisor is responsible for verifying the completion of all aspects of the farmers’ participation.

Approved advisors will notify DAFM of composition of group.

This is essentially the same process used under BTAP and STAP whereby advisors notified DAFM of the group composition.

The significant change is that advisors groups will be ranked in the case of oversubscription with advisors only being awarded the number of groups that they qualify for.