Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent)
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75. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if he will amend the green low-carbon agri-environment scheme to allow farmers with privately owned hills to be designated under tier 1 and tier 2; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [14489/16]

Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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GLAS is an agri-environment measure under the Rural Development Programme (RDP) 2014-2020 approved by the European Commission and aims to deliver overarching benefits in terms of the rural environment and address European Union issues of climate change mitigation, water quality and the preservation of habitats and species. GLAS is a voluntary scheme under which farmers are compensated for the income forgone and the cost incurred in complying. The scheme is designed to specifically target environmental priorities.

Access to the scheme is therefore by means of three Tiers, which will allow the most pressing environmental priorities to be addressed in order of importance, but also provides for a broad approach to delivering environmental benefits across all farming systems. My Department has generated a profile of each farm in the country identifying the environmental attributes at farm level.

This structure is designed to ensure the targeted and prioritised delivery of environmental benefits drawing from the extensive preparatory analysis underlying the RDP.

There is an internal hierarchy within GLAS of ‘Assets over Actions’. For example, in the case of Tier 1, expenditure will be targeted at the Priority Environmental Assets (PEAs) first before accepting intake from farmers adopting the Priority Environmental Actions.

In Tier 1, all farmers with PEAs get first priority access to the Scheme in year one and subsequent years. If any of the following PEAs are applicable to the holding, they must be chosen and the relevant actions planned :

- Farmland Habitat (private Natura sites)

- Farmland Birds (Twite, Breeding Waders, Chough, Geese/swans, Corncrake, Grey Partridge, Hen Harrier)

- Commonages

- High Status Water Area

- Rare Breeds

In the absence of any of the listed Priority Environmental Assets, a farmer (whether beef, sheep or dairy) with a whole farm stocking-rate exceeding 140kg Livestock Manure Nitrogen per hectare produced on the holding, or any farmer with more than 30 hectare of arable crops, will be considered under Tier 1 if at least oneof the following four mandatory actions is adopted:

Mandatory actions for farms with >140 kg Livestock Manure Nitrogen per hectare

- Low Emission Slurry Spreading Or

- Wild Bird Cover (grassland farms only)

Mandatory actions for farms with >30 ha or arable crops

- Catch Crops Or

- Minimum Tillage

Registered Organic farmers will qualify for priority access to the scheme under Tier 1, by selecting actions appropriate to the farm.

Under Tier 2 farmers, who do not have Priority Environmental Assets but whose lands include a Vulnerable Water Area, may apply for access to the scheme. In such cases, the appropriate actions relevant to Vulnerable Water Areas must be selected. In the absence of a Vulnerable Water Area, an applicant may still qualify for Tier 2 access provided that one of the following actions are chosen and planned for:

- Low Emission Slurry Spreading

- Minimum Tillage

- Catch Crops

- Wild Bird Cover (grassland farms only).

Tier 3provides a mechanism by which farmers can apply to join the scheme by committing to a series of general environmental actions but, as indicated by my predecessor when Tranche 2 of the scheme was launched, applications under this Tier were over-subscribed and farmers had been urged to present the highest standard environmental plans under GLAS 2, and to adopt actions that would promote them from Tier 3 to a higher tier, thereby significantly increasing the chance of selection. Over 80% of applicants in this second tranche of GLAS opted to do so, and with the funding available were approved.

The overall target for GLAS is to attract 50,000 farmers into the scheme. I am pleased to confirm that some 38,000 farmers have been approved into the first two Tranches of GLAS, 26,500 in GLAS 1 and 11,500 in GLAS 2, while ensuring adequate provisions are available for Tranche 3 of the scheme.

The criteria for selection will be applied to all applications across all farming systems and it is not my intention to seek an amendment of the RDP to prioritise farmers with privately owned hills where no priority environmental asset has been identified.