€43m paid to 4,180 farmers in Organic Farming Scheme

Payments have stepped up across a number of schemes in the last week and will continue at pace. Payments totalling €43m were made under the Organic Farming Scheme, while €17.64m was paid under the Sheep Improvement Scheme and €1.44m in the Tillage Incentive Scheme.

Payments also commenced under the Agri-Climate Rural Environment Scheme (ACRES), but the total payment and number of farmers receiving payment is not included in the Department of Agriculture’s weekly scheme payments update. Further payments will take place next week under the Basic Income Support for Sustainability (BISS), the Complementary Redistributive Income Support for Sustainability (CRISS) and the Areas of Natural Constraint (ANC). Reports also indicate that payments under the Suckler Carbon Efficiency Programme (SCEP) are also imminent, along with payments under tillage schemes.

Organic Farming Scheme

Approximately €43m has been paid to 4,108 farmers under advance payments in the Organic Farming Scheme. There is approximately 5,000 farmers participating in the scheme, following in the region of 1,000 new applicants joining at the start of the year.

The average payment is reported as remaining in the region of €11,000 to €12,000, with new applicants and farmers in year two of conversion receiving a higher level of payment due to a higher participation payment of €2,000 in year one (€1,400 thereafter) and higher payments in year one and two of the scheme.

Farmers wishing to join the scheme for 2025 need to act quickly, as the deadline for applications is Friday 29 November.

Sheep Improvement

The €17.64m payment to 15,877 farmers participating in the Sheep Improvement Scheme (SIS) represents an advance payment of 85%. There are in excess of 17,000 farmers taking part and payments will continue as cases are cleared. Participants who received correspondence from the Department on SIS or the National Sheep Welfare Scheme are asked to respond as soon as possible, so that approval for payment can be progressed. Balancing payments are due to take place in May/June 2025.

Tillage Incentive Scheme

The €1.44m paid under the Tillage Incentive Scheme (TIS) last week was to 1,000 farmers. This is higher than the €1m outlined in Budget 2024. The TIS was introduced in 2022 to incentivise farmers to convert grassland to tillage crops.

A payment of €200/ha was available for farmers who originally joined, satisfied the terms and conditions of the scheme and who have maintained the increase in tillage area. The scheme was not open to new applicants.

ACRES payments

As mentioned above, payments under the Agri-Climate Rural Environment Scheme (ACRES) have also started to reach some farmers bank accounts. ACRES payments are not included in the Department’s scheme payments update, so there is no further information at present regarding the number of farmers who received payment and the total funds.

Farmers can check to see if an ACRES payment, or any other payment for that matter, has been sanctioned in the ‘Financial Self-Services’ portal in their Agfood.ie account.

This will detail payments which have been made and also payments which have been sanctioned but which have not yet reached a farmer’s bank account. Farm Advisory Scheme advisers do not have access to this information and farmers can only receive it through logging in to their own account.

BISS, CRISS and ANC

Balancing payments under CRISS, BISS and ANC will take place at the start of next week. The detail of such payments is already showing up in some farmer’s agfood.ie portal. Farmers can see further information on scheme payments by clicking on the payment on the left-hand side of the screen and this will download a payment remittance for the particular scheme.

There will also be a cohort of farmers who are set to receive 100% of their payment next week. Payments under the above schemes were paused for the last fortnight to facilitate the issuing of advance payments, but regular payment runs will now recommence as cases are cleared for payment.

There is currently €535m paid to 114,699 farmers under CRISS and BISS. The number of farmers receiving payments is generally in the region of 120,000. Payments under the ANC stand at €203.69m paid to 95,844 farmers, while 113,625 farmers have received payment under the Eco Scheme.

Other payments