The new flagship agri-environmental scheme under the next CAP from 2023 to 2027 will target 50,000 farmers, Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue has announced.

The scheme will have an increase in funding of 50% over what was available for the Green Low-carbon Agri-environment Scheme (GLAS) and the Agri-Environment Options Scheme (AEOS) in the last Rural Development Programmes.

There will be two elements to the scheme. The first element will be around landscape measures where farmers will be expected to work with other farmers in their area to deliver a wider environmental good.

Payments

The Department of Agriculture expects to have 20,000 farmers participating in this element of the scheme, with a maximum payment of €10,000 and an average payment of €7,400. Learnings from European Innovations Partnership (EIP) schemes, for example the Duncannon Blue Flag Farming scheme and the BRIDE scheme, will be applied to in the scheme.

The second element of the scheme will be an individual element, with a maximum of 30,000 farmers participating. The maximum payment here will be €7,000 and average payment foreseen to be €5,000.

Farmers will only be able to partake in one element of the scheme.

The total budget for the scheme is €1.5bn for the period 2023 to 2027 and it will primarily funded by the ringfencing of carbon tax funds which will amount to €1.5bn in the decade to 2030 for agriculture.

See more details on the scheme in this week's Irish Farmers Journal.