The Irish Natura and Hill Farmers Association (INHFA) has warned that the "shambolic" roll-out of the Agri-Climate Rural Environment Scheme (ACRES) will impact uptake of future agri-environment schemes.
The INHFA vice president, John Joe Fitzgerald said: "The painfully slow roll-out of payments and associated support measures will not be forgotten by farmers when it comes to agri-environmental schemes in future CAP programmes.
"The entire process, from inception through to where we currently are with thousands of farmers still awaiting payments and clarity on their habitat scorecards, has been an unmitigated disaster," he added.
Fitzgerald believes that farmers were sold a scheme that would support them in delivering on the government's ambition to address issues around climate change and biodiversity loss.
"However, for many farmers this promise turned into a nightmare as the department has continued to miss payment deadlines leaving many in a precarious financial position,” Fitzgerald said.
"Every day, farmers and their spouses [are] ringing our office crying down the phone because the department has yet to pay them and can’t even give an exact date for when they will be paid.
"Many of these farmers have loans to pay which they are not able to do, this in turn is impacting on their credit rating and the potential to secure future loans," he added.
Fitzgerald has called on the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) to recognise the impact the scheme is having.
"We appreciate that while they talk in terms of the number of farmers paid and still awaiting payment, behind those numbers are real people that are hurting, people that they have failed,” Fitzgerald said.
According to the INHFA, beyond the hold up in payments there have also been major issues in the roll-out of critical support measures through the non-productive investments (NPI) and landscape actions (LA).
"These measures were designed to support farmers on improving the habitat and the overall habitat scores. Unfortunately, with many requests under the NPI turned down and commonage farmers still awaiting the roll-out of the LA we have to question if the department has the ability to deliver on any aspect of the ACRES programme,” Fitzgerald said.
The INHFA said that the second half of the ACRES timeline is "vital".
"It is vital that the minister gets on top of this which can be done through an interim payment for all farmers still awaiting 2023 or the first instalment of their 2024 payment," Fitzgerald concluded.