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The greenest farmers will net the biggest payments in the new REPS scheme, details from the Department of Agriculture reveal.
A pilot version of the scheme will be open to applications from a limited group of farmers by June of this year.
The scheme will be a marked departure from its predecessors, GLAS and AEOS. Instead of payments for choosing actions from a set menu, each field and its ditches will be scored based on their environmental quality.
Questions remain over the total funding available
Farmers with the best scores will receive the highest payment. It will not be a direct replica of the old REPS, which delivered a payment per hectare across the whole farm.
Instead, the new agri-environmental scheme will focus on the results delivered in specified plots.
Initially, it will only be open to those farmers who are not in an agri-environmental scheme.
Questions remain over the total funding available. Only €23m will come from carbon tax revenues, with the pilot fighting other schemes for a share of a separate €56m fund.
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