The 2021 advance payments under the Green Low-Carbon Agri Environment Scheme (GLAS) will commence this week, ahead of schedule, according to Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue.

The Minister confirmed payments amounting to €118m will arrive in almost 34,000 GLAS farmers’ bank accounts this week.

This brings payments to farmers under the scheme to date to over €1.1bn.

Payment

Minister McConalogue described how “farmers across the country will benefit from these payments” and said it was a “key priority” of his to “issue payments as quickly as possible”.

I am very pleased that these payments are commencing one week ahead of our stated target

He noted that the advance payments, at a rate of 85% of the full annual payment, are an important support to farmers in the delivery of key environmental actions and are important to the wider rural economy.

McConalogue continued: “I am very pleased that these payments are commencing one week ahead of our stated target of mid-November.”

GLAS to date

The Minister confirmed that a total of over €1.12bn has now been issued to Irish farmers since the commencement of the GLAS scheme in October 2015.

“To date, this scheme has delivered a range of benefits across the key priorities of water, biodiversity and climate.”

GLAS 2021 advance payments will continue to issue on a weekly basis

He reported that the environmental benefits of GLAS so far include the delivery of over 320,000ha of diverse grassland species, over 20,000ha of wild bird cover, over 1.6m trees planted and over 4,500 farmers now using low emission slurry spreading technologies.

GLAS 2021 advance payments will continue to issue on a weekly basis as cases are cleared and approved for payment.

Any scheme participants with outstanding actions or documentation to return to the Department are asked to do so immediately in order to allow their payment to be processed.

The GLAS helpdesk can be contacted at 076-106 4451 and farmers can also submit queries by email to GLAS@agriculture.gov.ie.