The 70% advance of the Basis Payment Scheme (BPS) has now hit the majority of farmers’ accounts, the Department has confirmed.

To date, just under 115,000 farmers have received their advance to a total value of €742m in a little over two weeks since the payments commenced.

According to the IFA, there are still 11,000 farmers who are yet to receive their advance BPS payments. However, the Department has stated that 94% of eligible BPS applicants have now received an advance payment. The payments issued are a welcome boost for farmers IFA deputy president Richard Kennedy has insisted.

However, the remaining farmers must be paid as soon as possible: “Given the seriousness of the fodder situation in parts of the country, particularly in the northwest, it is imperative that all BPS payments are made without any further delay.”

The main issues holding up the remaining payments are inspections, including satellite inspections, digitisation, transfers, dual claims and over-claims.

For those farmers who have received their 70% advance, the remaining 30% and other BPS-related payments, such as the Young Farmer Scheme and National Reserve top-ups, are also due to be paid in December.

Knowledge transfer payments begin

Payments have also started for the first round of payments made under year one of the Knowledge Transfer (KT) Programme.

Only farmers involved in beef and sheep groups will receive payments this week, with payments to farmers in dairy, tillage, poultry and equine groups to issue shortly, according to the Department.

EU regulatory requirements mean that the payments must be passed to farmers via the facilitator of their KT group. Therefore, it could be a few more days before farmers see this money in their accounts.

Where a farmer has met all of the requirements of the scheme, the payment will be €750.

Where a farmer is involved in two groups, they can receive a payment of €1,225.

The onus is now moved towards facilitators to ensure the swift payment to farmers.

A total of 19,000 farmers in approximately 1,100 KT groups are due payments from the scheme.

For year two of the scheme, there will be several changes which will allow farmers to attend two national events instead of one, giving them the option to complete four meetings and one event or three meetings and two events.

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