The £69.4m of funding that has been paid to NI farmers under the Environmental Farming Scheme (EFS) includes fees that were paid to consultants.

A spokesperson for DAERA said that of the £69.4m that was paid out to farmers over the first six years of the scheme, £1.12m was passed on to EFS planners.

The higher level of EFS, which is for land in environmentally designated areas, requires farmers to employ a consultant to survey land and design “site-specific remedial management plans”.

It is understood that the average fee for EFS planners equates to around £700 per scheme plan.

As reported last week, DAERA recently confirmed to Sinn Fein MLA Declan McAleer that the total costs of administering EFS to date equate to £31.5m.

On enquiry, a DAERA spokesperson told the Irish Farmers Journal that these administration costs are not covered from the overall scheme budget.

“Administration costs for EFS consist of DAERA salary costs of staff working on the delivery of the EFS,” the department spokesperson said.