Farmers are clamouring for a total overhaul of the Knowledge Transfer (KT) programme, as the 31 July deadline for the first year of the scheme looms.

Farmers want to see veterinary fees abolished and red tape cut in the beleaguered scheme, which is worth €110m to 20,000 farmers.

With the deadline of 31 July fast approaching, almost 17,000 farmers have yet to complete their farm improvement plan, while there has been no work at all done on the farm plans for 12,000 farmers. Almost 16,000 animal health measures are still to be submitted by vets on behalf of farmers.

A spokesperson for the Department of Agriculture told the Irish Farmers Journal that it has had “ongoing contact with the relevant stakeholder groups in recent weeks, in relation to the completion deadlines for KT”.

Extension

The Agricultural Consultants Association has formally requested an extension to the deadline for the submission of outstanding data in relation to KT groups in year one.

The ACA is not seeking another extension to the scheme deadline, which would have the knock-on effect of delaying payments to both farmers’ group facilitators.

Conor Geraghty of Veterinary Ireland said that a large number of farmers had come to him in the past week to complete their animal health measures.

We’ll meet the deadline, but the pressure is on.

"A lot of farmers have come to me in the last three days.”

Geraghty said that he wouldn’t favour another extension to the deadline.

An IFA delegation met with Department of Agriculture officials in recent days with a list of proposals to make the KT scheme more farmer-friendly.

These include a reduction in the administrative burden, the abolition of veterinary fees, and replacement of the veterinary plan by the use of faecal sampling.

The IFA also wants to see the strict KT rules relaxed to include weekend and evening meetings, more national events and larger group sizes. It also wants payments to issue within two months of the 31 July deadline, instead of the current three-month timeframe.

So far, 170 farmers of the 20,000 signed up to the scheme have formally notified the Department of Agriculture that they are dropping out of it.

Read more

Full coverage of the Knowledge Transfer

Administration of the GLAS scheme has been a shambles – McConalogue