A new area-based payment for NI farmers will be linked to an upcoming soil testing and land survey programme, DAERA has confirmed.

To be eligible for the main replacement to the Basic Payment Scheme, “nutrient planning” for fertiliser and slurry applications will need to be based on results from soil testing.

“Recipients will be required to adhere to certain standards of farming activity and behaviour as an evolution of the current cross compliance regime,” states a new document published by DAERA.

It follows on from an announcement by Agriculture Minister Edwin Poots in June when he said a £37m soil testing scheme will be rolled out across NI either later this year or in 2022.

The exact payment rate for the “area-based income resilience measure” has still not been set by DAERA, but it will be less than the current Basic Payment Scheme.

Headage payments

The department has also confirmed that it plans to press ahead with headage payments for suckler cows and breeding ewes as part of a new agricultural policy for NI.

The document states that headage payments will aim to drive “better economic and environmental performance” and DAERA officials are currently exploring how it could be linked to a proposed genetics and livestock data programme.

The DAERA document states that a proportion of funding will be set aside for “an agri-environment package” which will be available on top of the area-based income resilience measure.

The department state that “a single, all-encompassing” agri environment scheme is unlikely to be rolled out, so several different environmental schemes are to be expected.