There are a number of new land eligibility changes taking place in 2023. These changes have been outlined to advisers approved under the Department of Agriculture’s Farm Advisory System (FAS) at recent CAP information webinars.

Farmers will also receive information later this month when the terms and conditions of the Basic Income Support for Sustainability (BISS) are released.

From 2023 onwards, the Department must be satisfied that an agricultural activity is taking place for an area of ground to be deemed eligible for payment. There are a number of practices that satisfy that an agricultural activity is taking place and these fall mainly under two headings – the production of agricultural products or the maintenance of the agricultural area.

With regards to the production of agricultural products examples listed by the Department include the production of livestock, crops or agroforestry. Agricultural activities under the heading of maintenance of an agricultural area can be those taken to maintain the parcel or the landscape features within the parcel. Examples here include topping or mulching vegetation, controlled burning, spraying, hedge-cutting and ditch cleaning.

In the past there were fewer options to demonstrate agricultural activity in a parcel, with this usually quantified by livestock grazing / mowing / topping. The inclusion of practices that maintain an agricultural area and deliver a biodiversity benefit will now give farmers much more options to satisfy agricultural activity.

In the context of controlled burning, hedge-cutting and ditch cleaning, these must only take place outside of the prohibited period (1 March to 31 August) and be carried out in the correct manner.

For example, where land is burned during the closed period it is then deemed ineligible for payments for that year.

Specific allowances

An agricultural activity must in general take place every year.

There is an exception to this rule and under limited circumstances agricultural areas may be used every second year and still satisfy the agricultural activity requirement.

This allowance can only be availed of for certain environmental, biodiversity or climate-related reasons and information relating to such will need to be provided for consideration.

Agricultural activity will be monitored through administrative checks. In certain scenarios at application stage applicants will be asked to indicate what agricultural activity you are completing on the parcel(s) in question. Three scenarios highlighted include:

  • Commonage applicants.
  • Grassland but no livestock present.
  • Highly stocked applicants with a stocking density of greater than three livestock units per hectare.

    • There will be five dropdown options available to submit land details for the relevant parcels and these include:

  • Grazing livestock.
  • Grazing livestock and cutting hay/silage/haylage.
  • Cutting hay/silage/haylage.
  • Other maintenance activities.
  • No agricultural activity.

    • The latter option will trigger an overclaim if the claimed area is greater than 0ha.

    Eye in the sky

    Agricultural activity will also be monitored via the new Area Monitoring System (AMS). This will be introduced under transitional arrangements for the BISS and ANC in 2023 and will be expanded to other area-based schemes in 2024.

    Sentinel satellite

    Two polar-orbiting Copernicus Sentinel satellites will be used to capture images every five days and in addition to checking for agricultural activity, they will assess three other main components as follows:

  • Check if there is any change to the category or land use listed – for example, a change from arable, grassland or a permanent crop. If the crop is listed as permanent grassland, then the AMS will identify if all lands within the LPIS are such.
  • Check for ineligible features. This will typically include a check for ineligible structures such as farmyards, farmyard extensions (concrete areas, etc) and houses.
  • Check for the presence of beneficial features to ensure they are adequately mapped.

    • Any irregularities will raise a warning which will be communicated via the agfood.ie portal and also in text for those registered to receive Department SMS messages. Depending on the warning, farmers may be asked to take some action. The first results available from AMS will be in June 2023 with all farmers receiving a report in August 2023. By participating in CAP schemes you are agreeing to having your applications checked by the AMS.

    Landscape features and beneficial features

    There has been much talk in recent months surrounding land eligibility and payments for beneficial features such as scrub which were deemed ineligible in the last CAP. It is important in this context to define what constitutes a beneficial feature and to distinguish these from landscape features.

    Landscape features

    Landscape features are deemed part of the eligible hectare and are all eligible for payment. They include hedgerows, stone walls, trees in a line, drains, ponds less than 0.2ha in size and national monuments.

    Beneficial features

    Beneficial features have been described as features which deliver a biodiversity benefit. They include scrub, woodland, habitat, trees and rock. A new ruling under the CAP Strategic Plan which will benefit many farmers states that up to 50% of a parcel can comprise beneficial features and be included for payment. For example, a 1ha parcel could contain 40% beneficial features and the full 1ha of that parcel (excluding ineligible features) will be deemed eligible for payment.

    For grassland parcels, the percentage of beneficial features can rise to 70% and in such cases payment will be based on the area found. For example, take a 1ha parcel again with 60% beneficial features. In such a case the area eligible for payment would be 0.4ha.

    Arable lands and permanent crops where the percentage exceeds 50% are deemed ineligible. There is an exemption that may be applied to lands falling within the 70% to 100% bracket in the Burren/Aran regions which are a unique karst limestone landscape. Where a parcel contains over 70% beneficial features, then a 100% reduction applies.

    Scheme payments

    The beneficial features totalling up to 50% of a parcel will be used for the purposes of receiving payments under the BISS, the new eco scheme and the Complementary Redistributive Income Support for Sustainability (CRISS).

    The new Complementary Income Support for Young Farmers (CIS-YF) will be based on eligible hectares – so once the land is eligible then it can be counted for CIS-YF up to a maximum of 50 such hectares.

    Beneficial features: working example 1

    The example in Table 1 shows how the Department determines the percentage beneficial area within a parcel. Firstly, ineligible features must be deducted from the parcel area to get an adjusted area. This is the figure that is then used to determine the percentage of beneficial features. As can be seen in the table, this works out at less than 50% and therefore there is no longer any reductions for the purposes of the scheme payments outlined above.

    Mapping features and parcel merging

    Parcel merging is allowed in certain circumstances to provide for receiving payment on beneficial features. For example, if we take two parcels, A and B, measuring 2.1ha and 4.2ha respectively. Parcel A contains 1.4ha of scrub and parcel B contains no scrub or ineligible features.

    On its own the percentage of beneficial features in parcel A is 66.7% (1.4ha/2.1ha) meaning only 33.3% of the parcel is eligible for payment. If these two parcels were merged then the percentage of eligible features would be 22% (1.4ha/6.3ha), meaning the entire parcel would receive payment.

    Parcels cannot be merged in any of the following cases:

  • Non-adjoining parcels.
  • No physical feature is present between the new parcel and other parcels following merging.
  • Parcels with different ownership status.
  • Parcels in different ACRES measures.
  • Parcels in CP zones in ACRES.

    • The Department will continue to red line and mark ineligible and beneficial features. This is in order to be able to accurately calculate the different percentages to assess payment status.

    Stocking rate calculations and reference area

    The area used for stocking density calculations or the reference area is calculated by subtracting ineligible features and beneficial features from the total area. If we go back to our example in Table 1, then the reference area available to calculate the stocking density is 6.81ha (10ha – (0.65ha + 2.54ha).