Just one in seven (14%) of the circa 180,000 scorecards issued by the Department of Agriculture (DAFM) have been submitted so far by farm advisers.

This is inclusive of ACRES general and co-operation but excluding commonage.

Over 550 advisers submitted ACRES applications on behalf of 46,000 farmers before the deadline last December.

There are a total of 625 ACRES-approved advisers. However, so far, just 300 advisers have submitted scorecards, which is less than half.

According to the Department of Agriculture, there are a small number of advisers with a large number of scorecards.

Workload

There were an average of eight to 15 scorecards sent out per holding by the Department.

Just over 500 of the approved advisers have less than 200 applications, while 50 advisers have more than 200 applications and 274 advisers have less than 50 applications.

Sharing of workload is facilitated through the DAFM IT system.

There is a facility for farmers to change advisers to ensure completion of scorecards.

On 6 July, the Department doubled the timeframe from when the first scorecard has been started to submitted from seven to 14 days.

This means that once advisers start the process of completing scorecards for a farm, they have a period of 14 days to complete the

process and submit all scorecards to the Department’s generic land management system.

This is irrespective of the number or type of scorecards to be completed.