The Department of Agriculture is changing the focus of land eligibility rules in a bid to make it easier for farmers to comply and claim full payments under the new CAP schemes.

The criteria for eligible land is moving away from the need to show agriculture activity, looking instead for farmers to ensure land in marginal areas remains grazeable.

The Department is also pushing for tolerance in the rules so that farmers found to have no more than 10% ineligible land on inspection would suffer no deductions and still be able to claim the land as eligible. There were ongoing negotiations between the Department and the European Commission earlier this week on the issue. The Commission is pushing for the elimination of parcels that are found to have over 50% ineligible land.

The Department is trying to push this threshold to 70% on specific parcels where scattered, ineligible scrub is identified. This will be a stepped system on penalties for farmers who breach the 10% threshold.

The responsibility will, however, remain with farmers to deduct ineligible areas on the Land Parcel Identification System (LPIS) maps when they submit their Basic Payment Scheme application each year. This is even more important on the 2015 application as the area submitted will be used to establish Basic Payment entitlements under the new CAP.

If ineligible areas are identified in future years, it will mean farmers will have inadequate eligible hectare to draw all their entitlements.

The Department is expected to publish a booklet on land eligibility online, possibly later this week. It will then be printed and sent to farmers in the coming weeks.

IFA president Eddie Downey said Agricultural Minister for Agriculture Simon Coveney urgently needs to clarify the situation for farmers and planners on eligible land. He said clear direction is required regarding grazing and activity, as well as marginal areas.

He added that increased tolerance and flexibility must be a part of the solution, and be in place before applications are submitted.

The IFA president warned Minister Coveney that time was rapidly running out on this issue and more foot-dragging is totally unacceptable.

Ineligible land has been identified as a major problem as far back as 2008.

Inspection by the EU Court of Auditors has found issues with how the LPIS system was implemented in Ireland. Negotiations are still ongoing on the €180m fine imposed on Ireland by the EU last year.

In the past, the Department stipulated that a farmer was required to carry out an agricultural activity on each eligible hectare. An agricultural activity was defined as the production, rearing or growing of agricultural products, including harvesting, milking, breeding animals and keeping animals for farming purposes, or such actions as are required in maintaining the land in Good Agricultural and Environmental Condition (GAEC) each year.

Topping was accepted, but where it was not possible on marginal land the applicant had to choose other means, such as grazing at an appropriate stocking rate over the grazing season to meet the GAEC requirements.

In the past, land which had no evidence of an agricultural activity being carried out by the applicant was being rejected at inspection.