The current round of CAP reform began one year ago with the European Commission signalling that a major a redistribution of direct payments would be needed to bring fairness to the distribution of EU taxpayer funds headed to farmers.

The new CAP, as currently proposed, would reduce any area-based income support – which will come through whatever scheme takes over from the current Basic Income Support for Sustainability (BISS) – above €20,000, stepping up this cut in increments to a hard limit on income supports of €100,000.

A common statistic bandied around in Brussels supporting calls for a shake up is that 80% of CAP’s income supports are received by just 20% of the farmers, but Irish Farmers Journal analysis of the newly updated Department of Agriculture list of CAP beneficiaries suggests that this is not the case – at least in Ireland.

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The figures quoted below refer to the BISS payments made to 118,643 farmers for the 2025 financial year, which ran from 16 October 2024 to 15 October 2025.

Top 20%

The top 20% of claimants under BISS did not receive 80% of the funds in the 2025 financial year – they received 53% of the payments.

A BISS payment of €8,350 was enough to land a farmer in the top 20% and the 23,723 farmers who earned above this threshold drew down a combined 53% of the scheme spend, as per the database. This was equivalent to €366m across this group.

Bottom 20%

Having a BISS payment below €1,675 for the 2025 financial year would have landed a scheme participant in bottom 20% by payment size. The fifth of BISS farmers who drew down less than this figure represented just €23m of the scheme’s total spend.

Top 10%

Further examination of the figures in the Department database reveals that a payment of roughly €12,500 would be needed for a beneficiary to see themselves in the top 10% of scheme payments. Representing one in 10 of those taking part in the scheme, farmers with a BISS payment above €12,500 accounted for over 36% of the scheme’s funding paid out.

Bottom 10%

However, a BISS payment of below €1,020 would land a farmer in bottom 10th of the scheme’s beneficiaries.

The almost 12,000 farmers in this cohort drew down just over €7m in BISS funds in the 2025 financial year.

Averages

The mean BISS payment came to around €5,800 – this is a simple average of the total funds divided by the number of farmers who received payment.

The median BISS was a lower €3,825. This is the payment made to the farmer who would be in the exact middle of a list of all payments listed from low to high – half of all farmers received a higher payment than €3,825 while half received less than this.