Over 500 GLAS plans were submitted in the first few hours of the system officially opening yesterday (Thursday).

However changes to the terms and conditions and a newly introduced minimum requirement for tier 3 farmers this week has led Tom Dawson, President of the Agricultural Consultants Association to call for an extension to the May 22 Deadline. Earlier this week the Minister said he does not envisage any further extension, which did not firmly shut the door.

“The reason for the call to the extension is that with the changes planners have to go back over previously saved applications, call farmers and agree changes,” said Dawson.

The Department released the complex matrix where they put a maximum mark on each of the 20 actions available under Tier 3. It ranges from 13 points for picking a 30 meter riparian margin down to three points for bird and bat boxes.

Farmer must however get a pass mark over 16.3. This is the biggest issues that advisors as they were told that there would be no minimum under Tier 3.

The Department pointed that the minimum is easily achieved giving the example of a farmer selecting 4ha of LIPP, 80m of new hedging and 8 bird boxes.

The popular option such as low input permanent pastures and traditional hay meadows get up to 12 points. Only the first four highest scoring actions will be taken.

It means there is no benefit in selecting multiple actions in an effort to increase the chance of being selected.

However, there is complementary Groups that will boost the ranking such as (A) Bird Boxes with WBC; (B) Low input permanent pasture/traditional hay meadows with Protection of Watercourses from Bovines and Riparian Margins; and (C) Bees with Traditional orchards and with Arable Margins and Environmental Mgt of Fallow Land.

The Department has developed a spreadsheet that will allow applicants and advisors to score their own proposals and see how they are likely to rank in the selection process.

Of course for Tranche 1 they have said that all Tier 1 and Tier 2 farmers will gain priority access. Any Tier 3 applicant can promote themselves into Tier 2 by selecting one of the identified key environmental actions (minimum tillage, catch crops, low-emission slurry spreading or wild bird cover), provided of course that they deliver the minimum required for Tier 2 access.

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