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Over 2,000 farm improvement plans under the Knowledge Transfer (KT) Programme have yet to be submitted, figures from the Department of Agriculture show.
A Department spokesperson told the Irish Farmers Journal: “As of the morning of Friday 18 August, approximately 15,000 farm improvement plans have been completed by the relevant KT Group Facilitator.
“Over 2,500 further farm improvement plans are also in progress on the KT system.”
The spokesperson also said that approximately 13,000 animal health measures have been fully completed and submitted by KT-approved private veterinary practitioners to date, with a further 320 in progress.
There are 20,000 farmers registered in the KT Programme.
The deadline for completion and submission of data relating to the farm improvement plan and animal health measures was extended until midnight 21 August, in order to provide additional time for completion of these elements.
The Department has not received any request for an extension to the 21 August deadline and is not implementing a further extension at this time, the spokesperson said.
Loss of payment
Earlier this week, the Department warned that both farm improvement plans and the animal health measures must be completed by midnight on 21 August, or farmers will lose their full payment.
It has laid on out-of-hours help for Saturday and Sunday, 20 and 21 August, from 9am to 5.30pm.
This is “to facilitate the submission of any outstanding elements in advance of the deadline of midnight on 21 August”.
Queries during these extended office hours can be directed to 076-1064457, emailed to ktinformation@agriculture.gov.ie for general queries and ktpvp@agriculture.gov.ie in relation to animal health measure queries.
Thousands of Knowledge Transfer applications still outstanding as deadline looms
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