An analysis of the Department of Agriculture’s scheme payments update for the week ending 12 January 2024 shows €5.5m paid to over 1,250 farmers across five schemes. The largest sum was paid under the Basic Income Support for Sustainability (BISS) and the Complementary Redistributive Income Support for Sustainability (CRISS) with €2.7m paid to 302 farmers.

This is followed by €1.38m paid to 335 applicants under the Eco Scheme. As mentioned last week payments under the Areas of Natural Constraint have slowed with the majority of eligible applicants receiving payment. In the region of €0.8m was paid to another 553 farmers last week. Payment runs continue to take place on a weekly basis across all of these schemes.

Farmers can continue to check any payments issued via their agfood.ie portal. Payments made will be detailed under the ‘Final Self-Services’ tab. This will detail payments made by scheme and there is also a tab in the top left showing payments which have been sanctioned but which have not yet been paid.

Payments were reported under two other schemes last week. Over €450,000 was paid to 56 farmers under the 2023 Organic Farming Scheme. A total of 3,596 farmers have now received payment leaving about 400 farmers still to be paid. A low sum of €20,000 was paid to 12 farmers under the 2023 Straw Incorporation Measure bringing total payments here to €13.12m paid to 2,850 approved participants.

There has been no detail on any further payments this week under the Agri-Climate Rural Environment Scheme (ACRES).