In a tough year for farmers, with tight profit margins across the board, the Department of Agriculture partly delivered with regard to ensuring farmers were paid in time under the various CAP schemes.

Good

The Basic Payment Scheme (BPS), the scheme under which the vast majority of farmers in Ireland receive a payment, was paid out to 87% of eligible farmers on 17 October. The target under the Charter of Rights is 100% of cleared cases and 90% of all applications to be paid on 16 October.

Some 96% of farmers had been paid their balancing payment by 1 December. The charter has a target of 100% of applicants being paid their balancing payment on 1 December. So far this year, a total of €1.16bn has been paid out to 122,000 farmers under the BPS.

BDGP

The Department has also performed relatively well under the Beef Data and Genomics Programme (BDGP). According to the charter, payments under this scheme should commence in mid-December in the year of application.

This year payments commenced during the week beginning 12 December and last week 19,381 farmers out of 24,000 were paid a total of €36m. They will continue to issue on an ongoing basis as farmers verify compliance with the 2016 scheme requirements of data notifications and genomic testing.

ANC

According to the report, Areas of Natural Constraints payments commenced on schedule this year in the third week of September. Over €140m was issued to some 65,000 applicants.

Payments continued on a twice-weekly basis and to date some 90,000 applicants have been paid in excess of €190m. The Department says payments will continue to issue as the remaining applicants fulfil their stocking density requirements and become eligible under the scheme.

As we previously reported, there are also around 1,500 ANC farmers held up with the new yellow card system.

Young Farmer Scheme and National Reserve

The charter has a target payment date of 1 December for all farmers under both these schemes. The report shows that the majority of young farmers were paid on time with 90% of applications processed by 1 December. Remaining applications are subject to “outstanding issues or cases where the required checks on farms are being finalised”.

As there was no National Reserve in 2016, there was no issue regarding payments under this scheme by 1 December. Applicants who were successful in entering the National Reserve in 2015 would have been paid this year alongside their BPS payment.

Poor

GLAS

The Department fell down on some payments this year, particularly those under the various agri-environmental schemes.

For example, payments under the Green Low-Carbon Agri-Environment Scheme (GLAS) were behind by a number of weeks. Although the charter indicates that 75% of this payment should be processed and paid in October, 85% of the payment will instead be made in the second last week of December. Balancing payments will be issued following completion of all inspections, according to the Department.

AEOS

Similarly, farmers in the second and third tranches of the Agri-Environmental Options Scheme (AEOS), the predecessor to GLAS, have had to wait an unscheduled number of weeks before receiving their payment. Although 75% of this payment was due to commence for eligible applicants in the third week of October, first and second instalment payments under AEOS II and III only began issuing in December.

Organic Farming Scheme

Finally, payments were also delayed under the Organic Farming Scheme, with 85% of the payment issuing in December where no follow up action is required. According to the charter, payment of up to 75% was due to commence in the third week of October and the balance was due in mid-December. It is now anticipated that balancing payments will issue in the new year.

Comment

Commenting on the report, Richard Kennedy, vice-president of the Irish Farmers Association, said that while the charter “broadly works” and “was much better” on ANCs and BPS payments in 2016 compared with 2015, it has fallen down in relation to the agri-environmental schemes.

“The Department needs to do better on these payments in 2017,” he told the Irish Farmers Journal.

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Mixed performance from Department on payments in 2016

Figures from the farmers' charter of rights monitoring committee report in December 2016 show that the Department performed well on some payments, but not so well on others.