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Four powerful polar-orbiting satellites will inspect all Irish farms every five days in 2023.
These satellites will constantly collect information to monitor farmer compliance with the Basic Income Support for Sustainability, which replaces the Basic Payment Scheme, and Areas of Natural Constraint scheme.
The newly intensified monitoring will identify non-compliances such as the presence of ineligible structures, incorrectly categorised forage areas and ineligible land use such as scrub claimed as forage area.
The information collected will also be used to determine farming activity in each land parcel.
The mandatory EU introduction of the new system replaces the previous programme, under which only 5% of all farms were subject to on-the-spot and satellite inspections each year.
First inspections
The first satellite inspection results will be revealed to farmers in mid-June this year.
The new system will be extended to all area-based schemes such as protein aid and straw incorporation in 2024.
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