Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue has announced a review of Targeted Agriculture Modernisation Scheme (TAMS) reference costs. The long-awaited review is hoped to bring the reference costs of building materials and sheds in line with the 30% increase in building work seen in recent months.

Some 62 items, including farmers' own labour, have been increased by beween 5 and 40%. Although a decrease of between 10 to 30% will be applied on three items.

Payments

“I recognise that costs are changing on an ongoing basis and my Department will commence a further review immediately to ensure costings are kept as current as possible,” the minister said.

“I am very pleased to see that the Department continues to pay an average of €1.3m per week for completed TAMS II investments, with €1.6m issuing last week alone. I would like to encourage farmers out there with outstanding approvals to conclude the investment work and apply for the payment as soon as possible to facilitate the prompt issuing of payments”.

New requirements

There has also been a change in regard to certain milking machines and other equipment which means they will need to be in compliance with farm waste and nutrient storage requirements at the time of application. Due to a required upgrade of the TAMS IT system farmers will have to wait until 8 August to apply for these items if they so wish to.

The proposed changes to costs have been applied to the most recent tranche and a new tranche is now open for new applications until 5 November this year.

For more information on the change to costs click here.