The Department of Agriculture Agri-Climate Rural Environment Scheme (ACRES) is advising farmer participants that the portal for completing the annual declaration for the low emission slurry spreading (LESS) action is now open. The portal can be accessed through the Department’s MyAgfood.ie platform and may be completed online by an ACRES advisor approved to act on their participants’ behalf.
The LESS return must be completed on the portal by Monday 2 November 2026.
The Department warns that failure to complete and submit the LESS return will result in a delay in making the 2026 ACRES advance payment and may result in the rejection of the LESS action from their ACRES contract.
The Department advises that in relation to ACRES the following requirements apply to the LESS action:
Holdings must have a grassland stocking rate of less than 100kg nitrogen per hectare from grazing livestock manure prior to export of livestock manure. All the slurry applied on the farm (produced and/or imported) must, for each year of the contract, be spread by one or a combination of: band spreading, injection systems or trailing shoe. Pig slurry is not eligible for payment under this action and only other slurry produced on the holding is eligible for payment. ACRES participants must retain, and provide if requested, documentary evidence to confirm the spreading method used, and the volumes spread on the holding. For example, a calculation of the slurry produced, imported, spread and/or a receipt from the contractor or other evidence as required. The minimum volume of slurry that must be applied on the holding each year of the contract using one of the above listed methods is 50 cubic metres. For ease of calculation, 1 cubic metre is equal to 1,000 litres (220 gallons). The participant or their approved ACRES adviser must submit a completed annual slurry declaration return to the Department on the online portal. Only parcels with an eligible hectare >0 claimed on BISS 2026 will be available on the drop-down menu. Volume produced and volume imported must be entered in separate fields and at least one of the fields must be filled in. Multiple spread events on the same parcel can be inputted.