The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) has confirmed to Agriland that the clawback on entitlements will not be reinstated for the 2025 scheme year.
This means that those who sell entitlements without land this year will continue to see the full amount transferred to the purchaser.
Under Ireland’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) Strategic Plan the clawback on entitlements was lifted for 2023 and 2024.
The department noted that during these years, Ireland observed “above-average permanent transfers of entitlements to active farmers, indicating that the absence of the clawback mechanism motivated entitlement mobility”.
Clawback
According to the CAP Strategic Plan, the sale of entitlements without land will be subject to a clawback of 20% in 2026 and 2027.
This means that 20% of the number of entitlements sold without land, with the product of the clawback relinquished to the National Reserve.
For example, in the event that a seller sells 50 entitlements at €100 each, the buyer receives 40 entitlements at €100 each, while 10 entitlements will be relinquished to the National Reserve.
To be considered as a sale of entitlements with land, one hectare of land must be sold per entitlement and the clawback will only apply to the portion of entitlements not supported by land.
The CAP Strategic Plan outlines that “the primary objective of this rule is to support active farmers”.
“By removing the clawback on sales of entitlements should encourage permanent transfer of entitlements to active farmers,” it adds.
Entitlements
The department has also informed Agriland that it received 4,436 applications to transfer entitlements by way of sale in 2024. There were 6,678 such applications made in 2023.
31,912 transfer of entitlement requests have been approved by the department for 2024, to date.
These requests are broken down as follows:
- Inheritance: 965;
- Gift:1,321;
- Change of registration: 1,055;
- Change of legal entity: 238;
- Lease: 24,027;
- Sale: 4,306.
560,829.45 entitlements were leased in 2024, compared to 530,685.36 in the previous year.
The department noted that these are snapshot figures and they may be subject to change.
Entitlements will revert to the lessor as normal at the end of the term of the lease. All leases which are due to end at the end of the 2024 Basic Income Support for Sustainability (BISS) scheme year have an end date of December 31, 2024.
The department said that lease reversion letters were due to issue on January 16.
DAFM also clarified that entitlements not used during the two-year period of 2023 and 2024 then they are surrendered to the National Reserve in the 2024 scheme year, not 2025.
The current figure for the number of entitlements being surrendered to the National Reserve in 2024 due to non-use is 18,605.78.
“It should be noted that this is a snapshot figure rather than a final figure and it may change due to a number of factors such as the resolution of land errors and appeals against the usage decision,” the department said.