The Irish Natura Hill Farmers’ Association (INHFA) has said there is a “huge level of frustration” around the Agri-Climate Rural Environment Scheme (ACRES).
Members of the association conveyed some of their frustration to Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Charlie McConalogue at their AGM in Tuam, Co. Galway in recent days.
5,787 ACRES farmers have been overpaid to date by a total of €10.06 million, the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) confirmed last week.
As of July 18, the department said that 62% of farmers have an overpayment between €101 and €2,000, 28% have been overpaid by between €2,001-4,000 and almost 4% of farmers will have to repay more than €4,001.
DAFM noted that an overpayment of €100 or less (5.4% of farmers) will not be recouped and these farmers will not be sent a letter.
President of INHFA, Vincent Roddy told Agriland: “There is a huge level of frustration around that scheme, the hold-up in the balancing payments, but in particular, the hold-up in those scores on the CP areas.
“Farmers don’t know clearly what they are going to get until they get the habitats score and there has been a lot of confusion and a level of frustration around that.
“Definitely the announcement by the minister that they won’t recover any ACRES money out of ANC [areas of natural constraint], and they will have the opportunity to have that recovered through future ACRES payments, is definitely welcome,” Roddy added.
Non-productive investments under ACRES
Non-Productive Investments (NPIs) are actions that at are available to the farmer to address environmental issues on the farm, directly contribute to environmental objectives or increase the farmer’s capacity to improve field scores through management.
NPIs are applied for by the farm advisor in an NPI-Annual Works Plan (AWP) or by the Cooperation Project (CP) team in a Landscape Action-Annual Works Plan (LA-AWP) through the GLAMS mapping system maintained by DAFM.
The NPI actions are screened by the CP team and either approved or rejected. Authorisation for approved NPI actions is from the date of issue of the NPI-AWP approval letter.
DAFM has said that it reserves the right to carry out inspections, audits, assessments, research, monitoring, and evaluation at reasonable times for NPIs on lands farmed by participants which can include after the ACRES contracts ends.
Roddy said that it is vital that balancing payments are made to farmers as quickly as possible and also criticised the delay in NPI approvals being made.
“Farmers applied for those [NPIs] last November or December and they still haven’t got the go ahead on that and there is frustration around that,” Roddy continued.
Minister McConalogue told members of the INHFA at the AGM that “approvals are expected in the autumn” for NPI actions which were applied for last December.
“That is too slow, I absolutely accept that. The budget stays the same for the five years, so they can still be drawn down but obviously it make much more sense to draw it down as you go,” the minister added.
He explained that staff at DAFM “are working hard to rectify” the delay.