A significant portion of Ireland’s farmland will be hit with new CAP rules protecting peatlands and wetlands from 2024.

The Department of Agriculture is currently re-mapping the farmland affected by the new regulations. It will inform farmers of their new requirements by the end of this year.

The only examples of standards that may be introduced listed in the CAP strategic plan were a “ban on ploughing” and the use of min- or no-till when cultivating.

It comes as An Taoiseach Leo Varadkar told the Dáil this week that some of the EU’s nature restoration law proposals on rewetting go “too far” and that they don’t fully recognise “how we use land in Ireland”.