Farming organisations welcomed the announcement that results-based scorecards for land assessed under the Agri-Climate Rural Environment Scheme (ACRES) can be submitted for an additional four weeks to ease pressure on advisers.

The new deadline for submitting the cards is now Friday, 29 September.

However, IFA rural development chair Michael Biggins warned that the pushback of payments, such as those due to those in Areas of Natural Constraint, have “gone under the radar” and that the same cannot happen for ACRES.

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“There’s a lot of work that has already been done on plans, not all farmers have results-based actions that need scoring. There’s no reason to delay payments and it cannot happen,” Biggins commented.

“We welcome the deadline extension for scorecards, but we still need payments to be made on time,” INHFA’s president Vincent Roddy said.