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Farmers in an additional nine counties will receive their area-based payments based on new maps from next year as part of an update to the Department of Agriculture’s Land Parcel Identification System (LPIS).
The Department has been gradually rolling out the updated maps and counties Carlow, Dublin, Kildare, Laois, Offaly, Roscommon, Sligo, Westmeath and Wicklow will go live in the system from 2021.
The new maps were first introduced in Louth in 2019 before being rolled out to counties Meath, Monaghan, Cavan, Leitrim, and Longford in 2020.
The LPIS is the Department’s land database, which underpins payments to farmers under area-based schemes such as the Basic Payment Scheme (BPS), the Green, Low-Carbon, Agri-Environment Scheme (GLAS) the Areas of Natural Constraint Scheme (ANC), and the Organic Farming Scheme (OFS).
Payments to farmers in the existing six counties were based on the new maps. For the nine new counties their payments from 2021 onwards will be determined by the updated maps.
Their roll out will continue on a phased basis over the next two years with the Department expecting all counties to be live in the system by 2023.
A total of 15 counties will be operational by next year accounting for 42% of farmers receiving a direct payment. A further 73,879 farmers remain in the other 11 counties.
Land parcels are positioned as accurately as possible in the new LPIS, which is based on the most up to date Ordnance Survey Ireland (OSi) maps.
Criteria
Land parcels with administrative boundaries that are not associated with a real world feature, such as a hedgerow or a road, will be merged into a single parcel.
Land parcels that have roads or rivers cutting across them are split into separate parcels in the new maps.
All land parcels in the nine counties will be subject to the changes whether the farmer is based in the county or not. Parcels declared in other counties by those in the nine new counties will also be updated.
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