There has been a broad welcome for the TAMS II farm building grant schemes, the first of which was launched last week for young farmers, by Minister for Agriculture Simon Coveney.

A lengthy list of 202 items are eligible for grant aid, ranging from robotic milking parlours to winter housing for cattle and sheep (see details on page 68).

Importantly, Department of Agriculture officials have signalled that broadly the same list of items will be eligible for grant aid in the other TAMS II schemes due to open over coming weeks.

These will be open to those farmers aged over 40 or otherwise not meeting the requirements of the young farmer scheme. The next scheme expected to be launched is for dairy equipment and for organic farmers. However, tillage farmers are angry that the list of eligible items for the young farmers scheme has nothing for them.

Growers who contacted the Irish Farmers Journal pointed out that aside from grain stores the scheme could grant aid for driers, chemical stores or GPS equipment.

Minister Coveney has previously stated he would grant aid for slurry storage tanks on tillage farms, to allow surplus slurry on livestock farms to be used on tillage land.