The popular farmer clinics run by the Department of Agriculture to assist farmers in completing scheme applications return with 16 taking place nationwide from 1 April to 7 May.

Table 1 gives details of the event by county, venue and date with all clinics running from 10am to 4.30pm in each venue.

Clinics offer one-to-one support to help farmers submit their Basic Income Support for Sustainability and other area-based scheme applications. They are particularly useful where farmers do not have a Farm Advisory System (FAS) adviser to assist them with their application.

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Commenting on the announcement of dates, Minister Martin Heydon said: “These clinics have been exceptionally popular in recent years and offer an opportunity for farmers to engage directly with officials from my department.

“We have excellent advisers to support farmers in making their BISS applications,” he added, “but where farmers are not in a position to engage an adviser the clinics are an excellent means of ensuring that the BISS application is submitted correctly and on-time.”

Documents and phone

The Department explains that farmers planning to attend the clinics must bring details of their MyAgfood.ie login, where available, and details of their herd number and PPSN to verify their identity.

In addition since the introduction of two-factor authentication (2FA) farmers must also bring their mobile phone to the clinic to be able to access the six digit code sent to grant 2FA access to a farmer’s account.