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Some 6,500 farmers have yet to complete applications for the Knowledge Transfer (KT) programme, with just four days to go to the 21 August deadline.
With 20,000 farmers in the programme, Department of Agriculture figures show that only 13,500 completed farm improvement plans were lodged by Wednesday morning. Another 3,600 plans are in progress with Teagasc and private facilitators but not yet completed on behalf of farmers. The animal health measures, which are a compulsory part of the KT application for livestock farmers, are lagging even further behind.
Just 11,600 animal health measures have been fully completed by vets on behalf of farmers, with a further 450 in progress.
The Department of Agriculture has warned that both farm improvement plans and the animal health measures must be completed by midnight on 21 August or farmers will lose their full payment.
It has laid on out-of-hours help for Saturday and Sunday, 20 and 21 August, from 9am to 5.30pm.
This is “to facilitate the submission of any outstanding elements in advance of the deadline of midnight on 21 August”.
Queries during these extended office hours can be directed to 076-106 4457, emailed to ktinformation@agriculture.gov.ie for general queries and ktpvp@agriculture.gov.ie in relation to animal health measure queries.
Speaking to the Irish Farmers Journal, president of the Agricultural Consultants Association (ACA) Laura Johnston said: “The deadline will be achieved but the 6,500 farm improvement plans won’t all be submitted. We expect a further falloff in the numbers in the [programme].”
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