Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Martin Heydon is encouraging farmers and their advisors to submit Agri-Climate Rural Environment Scheme (ACRES) scorecards.

The deadline for the submission of scorecards for the agri-environmental scheme falls on August 31, 2025.

The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) previously said that scorecards must be submitted by the deadline in order to allow advance payments to be made in November.

The department issued 125,000 scorecards to ACRES advisors in the first week of June.

Minister Martin Heydon said that the availability of results-based payments was a "significant innovation in the design of ACRES".

"The assessment of the lands in question on at least three occasions over the five-year period of an ACRES contract means that an improvement in the environmental standard of that land is reflected in the level of payment the farmer receives.

"ACRES advisors play a key role in this element of the scheme as they are the people who walk the land and do the assessment and then score it using standardised scorecards," he said.

As the deadline is now less than two weeks away, Minister Heydon noted that just over a quarter now left to be returned.

"I appreciate that ACRES advisors are well aware of the deadline for the submission of completed ACRES scorecards.

"My department has issued a circular to the advisors to remind them of availability of a report function in my department’s Generic Land Management System (GLAM) system so they can check the status of the scorecards, with the circular also providing advice on how to deal with other issues that may arise when scoring.

"I consider it timely to flag the approaching deadline as the return of all completed scorecards is necessary for the processing of payments to the farmers concerned," he said.

DAFM has reiterated to advisors any scorecards that remain outstanding after the deadline may impact on the issuing of the 2025 ACRES advance payments later this year.

In its circular the department said that "once an ACRES scorecard has been submitted in full, it will not be possible to make further changes to the scorecard and it cannot subsequently be amended".

"It is therefore essential that advisors are fully satisfied that scorecards are correct at the time of submission," it added.

Where there is a change in the contract ownership, or an intention to apply for a transfer of the ACRES contract (e.g. where participant has died or a change to a farm partnership), the assessment of the lands must still be undertaken.

Where the change has resulted in a herd number being end dated and the scorecard is not available on the department'sAgriSnap app, advisors are told to use the paper scorecard to record the scores and notify the department via email.