Farmers attending the Department of Agriculture’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) information meeting in Mullingar on Thursday were provided with the expected timeline for the finalising of the CAP strategic plan.

The Department emphasised to farmers that the plan is subject to change by the European Commission, meaning that the expected timeline and the details of the schemes were not finalised.

The Department will make stocking rate and payment calculators available online to assist farmers in assessing the changes to their payments in 2023.

March 2022

The officials encouraged all farmers to avail of these calculators, as all payments and all entitlement values will change in 2023.

Department personnel were on hand at Thursday’s meeting to assist farmers with paper versions of these calculators and similar arrangements will be in place for the remainder of the CAP farmer information meetings.

June 2022

The Department plans on issuing letters to farmers reminding them of their obligations to qualify for payments under its new active farmer definition.

Farmers may be asked to provide proof that they are actively managing land for agricultural purposes or paying someone to do so on their behalf.

This status is likely to be easily provable for livestock farmers through the information provided in their herd or flock book, provided that they meet the new proposed minimum stocking rate requirements.

Tillage farmers can use receipts for farm inputs to prove their active farmer status, as can grassland farmers who sell fodder rather than grazing stock.

The letters will arrive in June to give farmers the time needed to gather the information they can use to prove their active farming status.

Summer 2022

The first tranche of the Agri-Environment Climate Measure (AECM) will open “around the summer time” of this year, the Department officials said on Thursday.

This will be the first round of applications for the replacement to the current Green Low-Carbon Agri-Environment Scheme (GLAS) and the Results-Based Environment-Agri Pilot Project (REAP), with either two or three tranches of the scheme to be opened in total, depending on the availability of personnel and demand.

The Department has also said that it will try to “balance” the applications in this first tranche between the individual and co-operative entry routes into the scheme.

September 2022

The Department hopes to have Ireland’s CAP strategic plan finalised by the European Commission before the National Ploughing Championships.

This would allow for clarity to be provided on the exact measures that will be asked of farmers in each of the Department’s CAP schemes for 2023-2027.

The Department intends on providing farmers with an estimation of the percentage of their land that is covered by non-productive landscape features “before the Ploughing” in September.

These non-productive features will form part of the conditionality of area-based payments, with a minimum of 4% of each holding to be covered by them to gain eligibility to payments.

These nature areas could also form the basis for eco-scheme measures, with a 7% and 10% coverage counting for one and two measures respectively.

February 2023

The Department intends on opening applications for the Basic Income Support for Sustainability (BISS) scheme, the Complementary Redistributive Income Support for Sustainability (CRISS) and the eco schemes.

The statement of entitlements is also to be issued at this time. The Department has emphasised to farmers that all entitlement values will change under the new CAP in 2023.