The payment claims system for Agri-Climate Rural Environment Scheme (ACRES) participants who deployed landscape actions (LAs) in the first application window has opened, Minister for Agriculture Martin Heydon has announced.

LAs are large-scale environmental actions focusing on issues such as threatened species, water-quality protection, invasive species management and encroaching scrub management in species-rich grasslands in the ACRES co-operation zones.

Making the announcement, Minister Heydon said: “Payment claims for ACRES co-operation participants with LAs may now be submitted in respect of the first application window. Farmers who wish to do so should approach their local CP team.”

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Window still open

He added that the third application window for LAs is still open and encouraged farmers who wish to apply for funding available to them through LAs to continue to engage with their CP teams to support them in making new applications.

“These actions are a unique, integral and innovative element of ACRES, supporting farmers to enhance environmental outcomes on their holdings, thereby increasing their ACRES payments," he said.

The first application window attracted some 840 applications, which increased to 1,120 in the second window, according to the Minister.