There will be a €363m-shaped hole in farmers’ direct payments under proposals for the next CAP.

Analysis by the Department of Agriculture has given the first indication of what could happen to farmers’ payments post 2020.

Through flattening, money will be taken from 54,567 farmers above the national average entitlement and moved to those below it.

By 2026, the national average entitlement would be somewhere between €171/ha and €198/ha.

The Greening payment, which currently makes up 30% of all farm entitlements, is to be scrapped and replaced with a new optional eco-scheme.

Of the €1.17bn in direct payments to farmers last year, Greening payments accounted for €363m.

The budget for eco-schemes is not set yet and nothing is known about what will be required in them.

The Department analysis used an eco-scheme budget of €242m, which is equal to two-thirds of the current Greening allocation. It also modelled an eco-scheme budget of €363.3m which is equal to the full Greening budget currently.

Under these models, a farmer with the national average entitlement of €258/ha would lose €60/ha or €87/ha due to the loss of Greening.

The Department estimated that eco-schemes would be worth an additional €53/ha or €79/ha to individual farmers, depending on the eco-scheme budget.

Read more

First glimpse at the future of farm payments

How many farmers face cuts from payment limits?

Over 114,000 farmers to gain or lose through payment flattening

All entitlement values to fall below €500

Eco-schemes: The successor the Greening