Around 7,500 farmers working on 145,000ha of disadvantaged area (DA) land in NI will get a payment of £14.40/ha this year as they exit the Less Favoured Area Compensatory Allowance (LFACA) scheme.

Letters to eligible farmers are set to issue from the Department at the start of February, with a one-page form to be signed and returned to DARD by 13 March. Payments are due to begin in June.

The money is effectively a one-off transition payment to DA farmers that was agreed as part of a wider CAP reform deal between the main political parties at Stormont last June. It is coming out of national funds and amounts to £2.1m, effectively half of what DA farmers have been receiving under the LFACA scheme.