Tillage farmers will shortly begin to see payments – worth a total €14.3 million to the sector – going into their bank accounts, the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine said today (Monday, January 29).
The support payments package is made up of €7.147 million from the Agricultural Reserve fund in 2023, matched with a top-up of a further €7.147 million once-off Ukraine related funding set out in Budget 2024.
Minister Charlie McConalogue said today: “I am delighted to announce payments totalling €14.3 million in support of the tillage sector.
“Tillage growers experienced significant challenges in 2023 with high costs of production, reduced output prices and challenging weather conditions which affected crop yields.
“Wet weather also affected the harvesting of crops with growers not being able to harvest crops in many areas.”
According to the minister because of the weather issues that tillage farmers were up against last year he had asked for support from the EU Agricultural Reserve for tillage growers.
Minister McConalogue said he also approved “a 100% top-up to the Agricultural Reserve allocation of €7.147 million in national funding which will provide critical support for this important sector.”
Tillage payments
The €14.3 million in support payments package aims to help growers who were unable to harvest their cereal crops last year due to wet weather.
The balance of the funding will also be used as a once-off flat rate payment on the area of oilseed rape, winter and spring barley, wheat, oats and rye declared under the Basic Income Support for Sustainability Scheme (BISS) in 2023.
Last November the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine also announced the Unharvested Crop Loss Support Scheme, which will provide support of €1.67 million to 236 applicants farmers.
The funding available for the one-off flat-rate payments is €12.63 million and is being paid to over 8,400 growers on the area of oilseed rape, winter and spring barley, wheat, oats and rye declared under the BISS in 2023 subject to a maximum of 100ha per applicant.
The rate of payment per hectare is €50 and the minimum area to be eligible for the flat-rate payment is 5ha.
Minister McConalogue added: “The tillage sector is an important and integral component of the agri-food industry making a significant and valued contribution to the Irish economy”.