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Eco-schemes will be one of the most important parts of the next CAP but how they will operate and what the budget for them will be unclear.
They will replace the Greening payment, which will be scrapped. This is a 30% cut to all farmers’ payments.
The budget will come from Pillar I, which is currently used for direct payments, and it is likely to be 20% (€242.2m) or 30% (€363.3m) of Ireland’s €1.2bn allocation. The Department has roughly estimated for an individual farmer it will be worth €53/ha or €79/ha depending on the overall budget.
It will be optional for farmers to enter the scheme but if they do not they will lose a significant portion of their direct payment.
SHARING OPTIONS: