Pressure is mounting to allow all farmers who applied for GLAS II into the scheme. Just over 14,000 GLAS plans were submitted when the deadline closed last Friday 18 December. It was originally indicated by the Department that there would be 10,000 to 13,000 places under GLAS II.

The Department has confirmed that over 7,000 farmers have applied under tier one, with 4,000 farmers under tier two. This leaves around 2,700 farmers who applied under tier three.

IFA rural development chair Flor McCarthy has called on Minister Coveney to allow all applicants join the second phase, with contracts commencing on 1 January 2016.

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The budget allocation in next year’s book of estimates for the agri-environment schemes is €205m, which also includes those farmers who are still in AEOS.

Lower payments

Advisers indicated that average payments under GLAS II are lower than under the first GLAS tranche, with many finding it difficult to get over €4,000. This would mean there could be funding available for the additional farmers. The minister will have to make a decision on this in early January.

The reason is that the real pressure will be on processing the application and notifying farmers before 31 January. That is the EU deadline to allow farmers to start the scheme on 1 January 2016. If this deadline is missed, the Department would be forced to offer farmer contracts of five years and 11 months.