The Tillage Incentive Scheme (TIS) is set to be rolled over for another year as €10m will be allocated to the scheme in Budget 2023, which is the same amount granted to it by Government this year.

Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue told the Irish Farmers Journal that he hopes the scheme will expand the area under tillage while maintaining the acreage taken into tillage production under the original 2022 tranche of the scheme.

The 2023 scheme will see farmers paid €400/ha to take grassland into tillage and €200/ha will issue to parcels entered into it this year, the Minister said on Wednesday at the National Ploughing Championships.

New ground

The funding allocation would allow the entry of 12,500ha of new ground into the scheme while paying the reduced rate on the 25,000ha entered into the scheme this year, the figures announced by Minister McConalogue suggest.

“We want to see the progress we have made continue,” Minister McConalogue commented, saying that the scheme raised tillage acreage by 6% to 7%.

“As for this year, it is about trying to expand. It has been a decent year for tillage farming and we want to grow on that and we want focus on the expansion while also maintaining progress we have made so far,” he said.