Balancing payments totaling €84.6m commenced this week under the 2024 Eco Scheme. This brings payments to €289m paid to 113,625 farmers. This builds on the €206m paid to 110,450 farmers under the 70% advance payment, meaning some farmers received 100% of their payment. Payments were sanctioned on 9 December and farmers should start to see those show up in their accounts within five days. The payment rate in 2024 is €66.50 per eligible hectare, marginally lower than €70/ha in 2023. There is no upper limit on the area of lands eligible for payment.
Balancing payments totaling €84.6m commenced this week under the 2024 Eco Scheme. This brings payments to €289m paid to 113,625 farmers. This builds on the €206m paid to 110,450 farmers under the 70% advance payment, meaning some farmers received 100% of their payment.
Payments were sanctioned on 9 December and farmers should start to see those show up in their accounts within five days. The payment rate in 2024 is €66.50 per eligible hectare, marginally lower than €70/ha in 2023. There is no upper limit on the area of lands eligible for payment.
The payment of the Eco Scheme is also totally independent of entitlements, with the payment based on an eligible hectare and not an entitlement unit. The Department has previously reported that by close of applications on 15 May 2024, it had received 121,097 applications from farmers for the Eco Scheme.
Not all of these applications will be deemed eligible for payment, but for those that are payment runs will continue to be processed on a regular basis as applications are cleared for payment. The total funds paid under the Eco Scheme in 2023 was in the region of €306m paid to 119,319 farmers as of 18 September 2020.
In announcing the payments Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue said: “The aim of Ireland’s Eco-Scheme is to reward farmers for undertaking actions beneficial to the climate, environment, water quality and biodiversity. Eco-Scheme payments are a vital support to recompense farmers who partake in this valuable work. My Department will continue to process, as a matter of urgency, all remaining cases for payment as they meet scheme criteria. I would urge any farmers with outstanding requests for documentation from the Department to return same in order to allow payments to issue.”
Pillar I payments
The payment of the Eco Scheme balancing payments concludes advance and balancing payments under pillar I of the CAP Strategic Plan.
The Basic Income Support for Sustainability (BISS) and Complementary Redistributive Income Support for Sustainability (CRISS) balancing payments were paid last week, along with the Complementary Income Support for Young Farmers (CISYF) and the National Reserve.
Farmers wishing to contact the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine regarding their Eco-Scheme, BISS, CRISS, CISYF or ANC payments can call the Direct Payments Helpline at 057-8674422. Farmers can also submit any queries they may have online via www.agfood.ie.
This is a subscriber-only article
SHARING OPTIONS: