The 46,000 farmers taking part in ACRES have a net land base of 1.2m hectares tied up in the scheme, John Muldowney from the Department of Agriculture has said.

The head of agriculture and environmental structures division at Johnstown Castle described the uptake of ACRES by farmers as phenomenal.

"Having 46,000 farmers approved into the scheme is beyond what anyone could have been planning for," he told a Teagasc Signpost webinar on Friday.

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This 1.2m ha of land is just taking into account area-based actions within the scheme, he said.

"Last year, farm advisers mapped out more than 300,000 features on to the GLAM [Generic Land Management] scheme. Within those 300,000 features, about 600,000ha of the land is moving towards a results-based payment.

Expansive

"That's where we have this big expansive work that we are facing at the moment," he said.

There's almost 200ha of commonages now within the ACRES scheme.

"We've slightly broadened the eligibility to include rented land in it, because of the nature of commonage. Anyone that's in commonage, the parcel will remain part of an ACRES agreement no matter what. There's about 10,000 farmers involved in this," he said.

There is 182,000ha of extensively grazed pasture, while catch crops account for 22,000ha.

There is half a million trees being planted, 5,500km of water courses being fenced and 2,000km of new hedgerows being planted.

Hedges have to be put in place by spring 2024.