Boortmalt has held two information meetings on greening options for tillage farmers for the coming year.

The meetings were held in Enniscorthy and Athy, with Boortmalt’s malting barley growers. Tillage farmers must fulfil some criteria to meet the greening requirements and access the associated payment, which will be worth 30% of their old SPS payment.

Firstly, at least 5% of their farm must be Environmental Focus Areas, set aside from production. This can include laneways, yards, and ditches.

Secondly, farmers must grow three separate crops to meet a crop diversification requirement. No crop can account for more than 75% of land sowed, and each of at least three crops must have 5% of the sown area.

At the meeting on Wednesday afternoon in Enniscorthy, Boortmalt’s Tom Bryan and John Crean explained that farmers could sow up to 95% of their land to malting barley varieties. Up to 75% of acreage can be planted with spring malting barley.

Boortmalt is also recommending that certain malting varieties they carry can be sowed in the autumn. They confirmed that this is being accepted by the Department as a separate crop to the spring-sown malting barley. This could potentially account for up to 20% of the sown area, leaving a requirement to sow 5% with a different crop.

Greening

In order to avail of this option, farmers would need to order appropriate seed and plant in the coming weeks for the 2015 season, the first time greening will be an active constituent of the new Single Payment Scheme.

There is an alternative to the three-crop option, which is to sow a catch crop as green cover. This must be done as part of the GLAS scheme to fulfil greening requirements. Boortmalt was not recommending this option for 2015, as the GLAS scheme is not open as of yet, and will not be for some time.