Paud acknowledged that we have a complicated system but this is because the Department has provided as many flexibility options to farmers as possible, a point acknowledged by Liam Dunne of IFA.

The online maps have now been completed but Paud reiterated that the features are computer generated and they need to be crosschecked and corrected. This is especially important where individuals are depending on landscape features to provide ecological focus area (EFA).

The main points from his presentation were:

• The Department intends to hold a number of information meetings, which may be preceded by workshop sessions that could enable one-to-one consultations.

• Where applicants submit fewer hectares in 2015, compared to 2013, they will end up with fewer but higher value entitlements for the years ahead and so require fewer hectares.

• The full parcel reference area must be submitted for each parcel.

• Farmers with 50% or more new land in any year, who have totally different land parcel use compared to the previous year, are exempt from crop diversification requirements.

• Growers considering the GLAS option for crop diversification equivalence will have to plant all of their cropped area in catch crops by 15 September in the year following harvest. These must remain in place until 1 December.

• Where one is using an area-based EFA measure, like fallow or protein crops, the landscape features in these specific parcels cannot be used to provide EFA – ie no double counting. However, where one is using the GLAS green cover equivalence option for crop diversification the use of these landscape features for EFA is allowed.