As long as you are actively engaging in a farming activity, you will have "nothing to worry about" when fulfilling the new active farmer check, Mary Carey from the Department of Agriculture told farmers at a BISS meeting in Trim Castle Hotel, Co Meath, on Tuesday night.

The active farmer check is to ensure the person receiving the scheme payments is the person farming the land being claimed.

"So, if a person is farming, they have nothing to worry about, they will be in the green and straight through," Carey said.

Farmers can be deemed active in a number of ways.

Automatic

If the farmer is meeting the minimum stocking level of 0.10 livestock units per hectare, they will automatically fulfill the requirement.

If they are not meeting the required stocking rate they can indicate what other type of other farming activities are being carried out, for example the sowing of crops, the cutting of hay or silage or any hedgerow maintenance.

"If you get a contractor coming in to do any of these jobs for them, that's fine. They should get a receipt from the contractor so that if we ask them for proof of the activity that they can provide us with a copy of the receipt," she told the Irish Farmers Journal.

The active farmer check is a feature of the new CAP which came into effect on 1 January 2023 and will appear on farmers' BISS applications.