This year saw a record number of farmers apply for the Straw Incorporation Measure (SIM). In total, 73,172ha was entered into the scheme. This equates to about €16.8m in funding needed to pay all participants, if all stay in the scheme.

However, we know many of these participants have already taken out parcels for one reason or another, the main one being that they have found a customer for their straw.

Chopping in the dark

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As the harvest began and the month of July rolled in, farmers had not received acceptance letters into the measure. That said, any year that the scheme was oversubscribed all applicants that met requirements were paid.

Weeks passed and confirmation was not given that all participants would be accepted into the SIM until 22 July 2026. At that time the winter barley and winter oats harvests were basically complete and winter oilseed rape, spring barley and winter wheat had all begun. Farmers were chopping straw without knowing if they would be paid. They were stressed, having grown crops based on budgets factoring in the SIM payment.

When it was announced, those who feared cuts in payment rates, as has happened with other schemes, were relieved that full rates would be paid, but this was also important for the straw market.

On 30 June, the Irish Farmers Journal wrote that the under-spend in SIM money in 2024 could help to pay for the SIM in 2026. The €50m budget for the SIM is ring-fenced for a five-year period (2023-2027) and there had been an underspend in the €10m annual budget in 2024.

In 2023 and 2025, the scheme was over-subscribed (see table 1) and Minister McConalogue (2023) and Minister Heydon (2025) both outlined that they secured the extra funding to pay all applicants.

Speaking to Irish Farmers Journal editor Adam Woods on 1 July, the Minister said: “There was €10m allocated for last year, we had applications of over €15m and I found extra money to make that up, such is the pressure in that space.

“My budget is a lot more constrained this year so, trying to find that additional money now is a real challenge. It’s something that I’m working through. I want to provide clarity on this as soon as possible.”

As outlined above, SIM applicants were notified of acceptance into the scheme three weeks later.

Investigating the budget

Since that time, the Irish Farmers Journal has been investigating what money has been spent in the SIM and where it comes from. We asked the Department of Agriculture a series of questions.

The Department told us: “The budget for the Straw Incorporation is €50 million over the current CAP period (2023 - 2027).

“This is a co-funded scheme under the CAP Strategic Plan with 40.21% national funding and the remainder from the EU.

“Ultimately the main budget is €50 million over the 5 years and the total spend has to respect this. Any annual “savings” or “overspends” are therefore not relevant.

“SIM has spent €34.4 million prior to processing of claims for 2026.” So, the Department has effectively said that the €50m budget can be used in any year.

However, from the Irish Farmers Journal’s understanding the Minister would have needed to ensure that the overspend money would be available.

An overdraft was effectively needed. In each year, the EU has to provide approximately €6m for the scheme and the Government has to provide €4m for the scheme.

If more is needed in a given year, then it needs to be secured. Therefore, if the total SIM payout this year is €15m for example, approximately €3m is needed from the EU and €2m from the Government.

Total spend

With €34.4m spent in the first three years of the measure and between €15m and €16m needed for this year, that brings the total spend on SIM so far to around the €50m mark – the total budget. This means the original five-year budget will be mostly gone by the end of year four and will need to be sourced for 2027.

Some tillage farmers were not paid for their 2025 SIM efforts until 2026 which raises the question if this was dipping into the 2026 budget or using it as an overdraft facility.

Will it be the case that some payments will be delayed into 2027 for 2026? It is not clear if the €50m was delivered into the SIM bank account in one lump sum or annually.

SIM has no doubt played a massive role in tillage farmers being on track to meet the Climate Action Plan target of incorporating 85,000ha of straw by 2030.