Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue has hinted at the possibility of expanding the number of places available under the Agri-Climate Rural Environment Scheme (ACRES) when its second tranche opens later this year.

Under the budget initially agreed in the CAP plan, there will only be around 4,000 places left for all farmers who wish to have a place on the environmental scheme.

Minister McConalogue said that he is engaging at Government-level to examine the budgetary options available to fund the second tranche of ACRES, due to open before the end of the year.

“In our overall CAP budget, we budgeted for 50,000 farmers.

“It’s my objective to achieve a situation where we can accommodate all of those who are interested,” the minister said on Thursday.

“Obviously, that will take further work at budgetary level now, working across Government and we will have a second tranche opening later this year.”

Engagement needed

McConalogue also stated that he will engage with the Minister for Public Expenditure Pascal Donohoe on the “budgetary issues” around accommodating all interested farmers while speaking at Thursday's AGM of the Agricultural Consultants Association (ACA).

Minister McConalogue added that he sees great importance in ensuring that farmers who have “shown a massive appetite” to reach environmental goals are catered for.

The minister made a surprise announcement last month accepting every valid application made to the scheme – some 46,000 applications.

President of the ACA Noel Feeney warned the minister that advisers are anticipating “considerable demand” for remaining ACRES places, as there is a huge appetite to enter among those who are not already in the scheme.

BISS open for ACRES farmers

The minister’s comments come as 46,000 farmers accepted into ACRES (along with their advisers) have been granted access to the Basic Income Support for Sustainability (BISS) scheme system on Thursday.

They had been unable to view their application up until then, while non-ACRES farmers had been able to access the system from the end of February.