Over 2,000 farmers in the Agri-Climate Rural Environment Scheme (ACRES) have now submitted an annual rare breeds declaration for last year.

The Conservation of Rare Breeds action under the agri-environmental scheme aims to retain and where possible, increase populations of specific rare breeds species.

The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) previously announced that the annual declaration for 2024 had to be submitted by the deadline of November 15, 2025.

ACRES

The department has now confirmed to Agriland that 2,050 farmers have sent the relevant information to date.

Of that total, 1,584 are in the ACRES General and 466 in ACRES Co-operation (CP).

The following table provides a breakdown, by county, of the declarations received to date in respect of 2024:

The data shows that Galway had the highest number of rare breed declarations at 552, followed by Mayo (291) and Clare (170).

DAFM also provided a breakdown of the species of rare breeds submitted in the annual declarations received to date in respect of 2024.

However, the department noted that the figures in the table below do not match the total number of declarations above as some participants have more than one breed on their declaration.