ACRES farmers need practical advice and assistance which can be accessed at local level, well-known Donegal hill farmer Seanie Boyle has claimed.

The current negativity around ACRES could be addressed by better communication and interaction with farmers on the ground, he maintained.

While a lot of the ACRES commentary to date has been focused on the statistics relating to the number of applicants who have been paid or left unpaid, Boyle pointed out that there has been less focus on how the payment rates are calculated or what actions farmers can take to improve the scores they have achieved on given parcels.

“The metric for working out the weighted score for commonages hasn’t been outlined to farmers and is not understood by many,” Boyle maintained.

Most farmers have received the maps with their overall score, and they see the negative scores given to various parcels because of turbary rights or invasive species, but they don’t understand how the final figure is achieved, Boyle stated.

The Donegal farmer, who is a branch officer with the Irish Natura and Hill Farmers Association (INHFA), said there was also an absence of advice on how farmers could target actions to improve commonage scores.

Information too vague

“There is no specific breakdown to explain payments; the information on payments is too vague,” Boyle said.

“Farmers need to be told what actions they need to take to make sure a payment is improved or secured for a particular parcel,” he added.

Boyle pointed out that the presence of one rhododendron bush had knocked the score on a particular parcel of his commonage ground by one.

The bush is now gone but Boyle and his fellow commonage owners will have lower payments for two years because the ground will not be scored again until next year.

ACRES farmers risk becoming unpaid litter wardens for county councils because of commonage scores being hit due to illegal dumping, Donegal farmer Seanie Boyle claimed.

While some farmers were actually removing rubbish from sites to protect their commonage scores, Boyle said this was extremely unfair on landowners.

It’ll be into year four before we get the payments and the benefit from these

“Farmers cannot become unpaid litter wardens, no more than they can stop their neighbours legally cutting turf on their commonages, but these activities are giving farmers a negative mark for their lands and that’s a major frustration,” he said.

ACRES scorecards being unduly influenced by what Boyle described as the “negative indicators” was another major frustration.

Similarly, ACRES applicants are extremely dissatisfied that landscape actions, which could improve scores, have now been delayed till next year.

“It’ll be into year four before we get the payments and the benefit from these,” he said.

The INHFA has called for a round-table forum to find “workable solutions” to the ongoing issues with ACRES.

INHFA vice-president Mícheál McDonnell said there had to be more “transparency at local level in terms of scorecards”.

McDonnell also called for a “streamlined appeals process” to be put in place within the co-operation teams, which would allow farmers to appeal habitat scores.

“It is vitally important that we have better engagement at local level. Farmers need to be able to meet the co-operation teams to go through their scores,” McDonnell said.