The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine has announced a closing date of Thursday 28 May 2026 for the submission of applications for landscape actions (LAs) in the Agri-Climate Rural Environment Scheme (ACRES).

LAs are open to farmers participating in the co-operation entry route of ACRES and are not available to participants who entered through the general entry route.

The current application window for applications opened on 11 February 2026, but up until this week the Department had not announced a deadline date.

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The Department of Agriculture describe LAs as “a range of voluntary complementary environmental actions available to participants in the co-operation approach of the scheme to deal with issues such as invasive species, encroaching scrub management in species-rich grassland and issues affecting threatened species and water quality protection”.

The Department adds that LAs have been designed to target environmental issues, which have been highlighted in the scorecards for results-based payments and are causing a reduction in the score achieved.

LAs areas

There are five headings in which LAs fall under – habitat and wildlife support; invasive species; hydromorphology, scrub removal track installation; and infrastructure.

Examples of popular actions under the habitat and wildlife support include targeted grazing of molina and gorse, virtual fencing, bracken control and traditional stone wall maintenance.

There are big potential payments for tackling significant issues with invasive species.

For example, payments of up to €30,000 are available for stem injection of a hectare of Japanese knotweed, with payments ranging from €1,000 to €20,000/ha available for tackling rhododendron or laurel of varying degrees of severity.

Hydromorphology actions include those aimed at restoring peat, enhancing habitats for wildlife and constructing/maintaining dams.

Scrub removal with machinery is common under the scrub removal track installation, while last, but not least, infrastructure is a popular LAs submission area offering assistance for fencing, installation of gates, purchase of mobile feed troughs/bins, pasture or solar water pumps and electric fence units and water storage tanks.

Application process

The applications for LAs are submitted by the ACRES co-operation project teams on behalf of participants in their respective areas. The co-operation project team creates and submits a landscape action annual works plan (LA-AWP) for the ACRES co-operation participant through the Generic Land Management (GLAM) mapping system.

The proposed LAs are then environmentally screened by the co-operation project team, who submit the outcome of that screening to the Department. Decision letters are then issued by the Department to the participants.

Authorisation for approved LA actions is from the date of issue of the LA-AWP Decision letter. LAs must not be undertaken in advance of receiving the decision letter as approval is subject to the outcome of the environmental screening and validation of the application.