The latest Department of Agriculture schemes payment update for the week ending 9 January shows €8.56m paid in the latest payment run. Payments under the 2025 Straw Incorporation Measure (SIM) accounted for almost 48% of last week’s funds, with €4,169,593.11 paid to 879 scheme participants.

This equates to an average payment of €4,743.56 per applicant. It brings the total funding paid under the 2025 scheme year to €12.46m for 2,701 participants, following payments of €8.3m to 1,811 farmers in mid-December. Funding for the 2025 scheme year was topped up with additional National Exchequer funding, with €10m allocated annually under the CAP Strategic Plan.

This allowed payment rates to be maintained at €250/ha for oats, wheat and barley rye straw and €150/ha for oilseed rape straw. The payment to-date in 2025 is almost twice the level of €6.68m paid to 1,645 farmers under SIM in 2024, with participation greatly reduced due to the introduction of the Baling Assistance Payment.

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Farmers wishing to contact the Department regarding their payment are advised to ring the Direct Payments Helpline at 057-8674422, or email tillage@agriculture.gov.ie.

While on the subject of tillage payments, there was one more participant paid €3,084 in the latest payment run for the 2025 Protein Aid Scheme, bringing the total payment to €9.63m paid to 1,612 participants.

Tillage support scheme

Meanwhile, there have been no further updates on how or when €30m in support for the tillage sector allocated in Budget 2026 will be paid out.

Minister for Agriculture Martin Heydon stated in early December that he wanted changes to the 2025 Tillage and Horticulture Scheme, which saw €32.36m paid to 10,699 farmers with payments commencing in February 2025. It is not known yet when payments are due to take place in 2026.

In his December comments the Minister said; “I want to do this differently from the last scheme. The last scheme provided a much-needed €100 for every hectare that had seed in the ground, with no capping or conditionality around it.

“We can be more targeted with this €30m, get it to those who need it the most and increase the value of it for those farmers as well.”

BISS/CRISS

There was €893,463 in funding paid under the heading for the Basic Income Support for Sustainability (BISS), Complementary Redistributive Income Support for Sustainability (CRISS) and the Complementary Income Support for Young Farmers (CIS-YF)/National Reserve.

This brings the total funding distributed to €830.58m paid, with 117,596 farmers paid their 2025 BISS/CRISS payment. The above payment figure includes €33.6m paid under the 2025 CIS-YF and €2.6m under the National Reserve.

The approximate funding paid in 2024 was €847.71m paid to 119,731 applicants.

This means that there is just over 2,000 potential farmers to be paid once their applications are cleared for payment under the 2025 scheme year.

Eco scheme

There was over €1.5m paid under the eco scheme to 440 farmers or an average of €3,445 per farmer paid.

This brings the total payment to €296.85m paid to 115,651 farmers.

There was 118,777 farmers paid €308.59m under the 2025 scheme year, with remaining payments being made as applicants are cleared for payment.

Any farmer who received a request for information from the Department is advised to return this as soon as possible to facilitate payment.

Areas of Natural Constraint

There was also a significant number of payments under the Areas of Natural Constraint (ANC), with €1.982m paid to 613 participants. The jump in payments was underpinned by more farmers satisfying the minimum stocking rate requirements by year end.

The number of farmers paid stands at €242.78m to 96,678 farmers. There is typically almost €250m paid to over 99,000 farmers under the ANC.

Stocking rate likely remains a significant factor in processing payments with sheep-only farms as these figures are based on census returns or the submission of a farmer’s flock register.

Farmers wishing to contact the Department can email DirectPaymentsCorrespondence@agriculture.gov.ie, or call the Direct Payments Helpline at +353(0)5786-74422.