Figures provided by Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Charlie McConalogue show that over 3,300 notification were sent to farmers in the third quarter of the year for the potential presence of incorrect crops.

Minister McConalogue provided the figures in response to a parliamentary question from independent Galway East TD Seán Canney, who asked the minister what percentage of AMS notifications were sent out under the satellite-based Area Monitoring System (AMS) for the presence of incorrect crops.

Canney also asked the minister for "his views on whether there is a problem with the crop identification system".

In response, the minister said that, in the three months from July to September, the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine issued 3,341 AMS notifications for the potential presence of incorrect crops.

92% of these notifications were responded to, with 43% of the AMS notifications being accepted by the farmers and 53% of them being rejected. All responses required the submission of a photo via the department's AgriSnap geotagged photographing app.

Of the 53% of these AMS notifications rejected by the farmer or advisor, 1,416 AgriSnap photos were submitted to support the rejection. A total of 76% of these photos were accepted by the department.

The remainder of the photos were deemed inconclusive and thus a field inspection was required to verify the crop on the ground. To date, 29% of these land parcels have a different crop on the ground than the crop claimed.

The minister said that work is continuing to verify the crops on land parcels in cases were the department deemed the geotagged photos to be inconclusive.

In his response, the minister said: "I believe the AMS system, as validated and implemented in my department, is performing to a very high standard. It fully satisfies our obligations under the EU regulations, and offers benefits to farmers through reduced onsite checks and a means to make corrections without penalty.

"It provides clear and concise queries to farmers where needed, avoiding confusion or concern in a fair, open and transparent way. Within my department, it provides efficiencies in issuing payments to farmers while also providing improved administration and control of the almost €10 billion in CAP (Common Agricultural Policy) funds," the minister added.

He said AMS is "also subject to continuous improvement".

The department is monitoring all area-based schemes using AMS in 2024. The system monitors all land parcels declared by over 120,000 farmers on their 2024 Basic Income Support for Sustainability (BISS) applications.

This is a change from the previous inspection regime where 5% of herds were selected for land eligibility inspections. The annual cost of the AMS service provision is €1.13 million, according to the minister.

Apart from ineligible land use (such as ineligible crops), the system also checks for:

The presence of ineligible features, such as a house, farm roadway or farm building;
A difference in crops category than the category declared;
Potential lack of evidence of agricultural activity.