Brendan Griffin (Kerry, Fine Gael)
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1281. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if his Department consulted and engaged with hill farmers before the ACRES scheme was launched; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [54993/22]

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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The Agri-Climate Rural Environment Scheme (ACRES) is the agri-environment climate measure which forms part of Ireland’s CAP Strategic Plan (CSP) 2023 – 2027.  While I provided information on the draft Scheme on 21st June 2022, I announced the formal opening of the Scheme on 19thOctober 2022, for which applications may be submitted until 21st November 2022.

The Department engaged extensively with all stakeholders including farm bodies in relation to the development of Ireland’s CSP.

The CAP Consultative Committee was specifically formed for consultation and engagement with a range of stakeholders, including representatives from the farm bodies.  The CAP Consultative Committee met on 33 Occasions, which included thematic workshops on the Green Architecture and proposed interventions, one of which was the agri-environment climate measure, now known as ACRES.

I personally engaged directly with farmers at mart meetings in 2021. I held consultation meetings at marts in every county in Ireland.

The Department also arranged a series of townhall meetings as well as public consultations to afford the maximum opportunity for stakeholder input, including:

- Five Public Consultations on the development of the CSP

- Twelve Townhall meetings

- Three virtual townhall meetings on 10, 11 and 12 August 2021

- Fourteen Information Sessions held nationwide in February and March 2022.

Representatives from the relevant Divisions in my Department also held over a hundred meetings with various representative organisations.

Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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1282. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if he will extend the deadline for Glas first-tranche applicants beyond 10 November 2022; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [54995/22]

Michael McNamara (Clare, Independent)
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1306. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if he will grant an extension to the timeframe for applications regarding the new ACRES scheme (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [55472/22]

Paul Kehoe (Wexford, Fine Gael)
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1310. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if there has been any further change to the deadline for submission of applications to the ACRES scheme; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [55502/22]

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 1282, 1306 and 1310 together.

ACRES (Agri-Climate Rural Environment Scheme) is Ireland's new agri-environment climate scheme under Ireland's CAP Strategic Plan 2023 - 2027.

This new €1.5 billion flagship agri-environment scheme is a farmer-friendly scheme to help address biodiversity decline while delivering an income support for up to 50,000 farm families in Ireland.

Farmers may apply for one of the approaches available under ACRES, namely the ACRES Co-operation approach, available to farmers in eight defined high priority geographical areas, or the ACRES General approach which is available nationally outside of the eight ACRES Co-operation zones.

Farmers must engage the services of an approved ACRES advisor to prepare and submit the application. This includes the preparation of a Farm Sustainability Plan (FSP) which forms the bulk of the application.

The intake into the scheme is phased, with at least two tranches, to spread the workload of advisors.

The online system for the submission of ACRES applications was opened on 17th October 2022 with, as I have mentioned, a closing date of Monday 21st November 2022 for the submission of applications under the current Tranche.

There are currently approximately 700 advisors approved for ACRES. Significant assistance was provided to advisors in advance of the formal opening of the Scheme to enable them to engage with their clients and commence preparation of the Farm Sustainability Plans.

Such assistance included the provision of training, both in-person and by webinar, the publication of draft Specifications in August and the opening of the Department’s Generic Land Management (GLAM) system in mid-August for training, information and map printing. All of these steps enabled advisors undertake preparatory work on the development of FSPs and applications in advance of the opening. Support material has also been provided to advisors including system instruction manuals and guides, and video tutorials on the steps to be taken in preparing and submitting the application. The application screen itself has been developed to make this final step as straightforward as possible. Responses to technical queries from advisors continue to be provided on a timely basis.

I appreciate that, notwithstanding the level of assistance provided and there being a five-week application period, the submission of ACRES applications is creating a significant workload for advisors. For this reason, I am monitoring the level of applications and the overall situation on an ongoing basis.

Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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1283. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if his Department has engaged local farmers in advance of the launch of the current ACRES scheme to elicit feedback on sustainability and conservation of the rural landscape; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [54996/22]

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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ACRES, the new agri climate rural environment scheme, will enable the participation of some 50,000 farmers in a targeted, innovative and environmentally ambitious scheme, through the ACRES General approach or the ACRES Co-operation approach.

This new scheme builds upon the experience of farmers participating in previous agri-environment schemes such as GLAS and REAP (Results-Based Environment Agri Pilot Project). The purpose of REAP, a pilot agri-environment project, was to help farmers and their advisors, and my Department to test some innovative actions and results-based scoring, and to build up knowledge in advance of the rollout of ACRES from January 2023. 3,700 farmers participated in REAP and the resulting feedback played an important role in the development of the ACRES scheme.

In addition, my Department engaged in an unprecedented level of public consultation in developing the new CAP strategic plan.

In developing ACRES my Department has also drawn on the learnings of the very successful European Innovation Partnership (EIP) projects which have been funded by my Department in recent years. These EIP projects, such as the Hen Harrier and Pearl Mussel programmes amongst many others, encourage co-operation and innovation in dealing with challenges facing agriculture, the environment and the rural economy.

By bringing together farmers, scientists and advisors these project groups were able to elicit and build on the local knowledge and information from farmers, in establishing and running these projects. Local knowledge and expertise of the farmers involved in relation to the conservation of their local rural landscape and the sustainability of agricultural practices were all combined together with research from scientists to provide the solutions to local challenges.

It is this significant co-operative work which provides the basis for the ACRES Co-Operation approach which will now be at a national scale involving some 20,000 farmers. Many of these EIP project groups have now established as ACRES Co-Operation Teams and are utilising that important feedback that they have received from farmers in these areas in establishing their projects in the ACRES CP zones.

CP teams, now established in each of the 8 CP zones, are communicating regularly with the farmers in these areas in the development of their Local Action Plans for their zones. Farmer input, both through the previous EIP work and through involvement with the current CP teams, have resulted in the development of a scheme that aims to deliver significant long-term environmental improvement across the country.

Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)
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1284. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if he will clarify the way in which designations are interpreted with regard to the ACRES scheme; if designations are accepted from bodies such as BirdWatch Ireland in a “hearsay” manner; and his views on whether such designations should not have any standing in relation to qualification for this scheme and that designations should only be accepted in writing from the National Parks and Wildlife Service. [55015/22]

Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)
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1285. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if he will clarify the appeals process for the ACRES scheme where an applicant feels an incorrect designation has been affixed to a landholding. [55016/22]

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 1284 and 1285 together.

There are two approaches within the new ACRES scheme - an ACRES General approach and an ACRES Co-Operation approach. The ACRES Co-Operation approach is available to farmers in defined high priority geographical areas with the ACRES General approach available nationally outside those areas.

The map of the eight Co-operation Project (CP) zones for the ACRES Co-operation approach was produced by an interdepartmental working group with representatives from my Department, the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS), EPA and LAWPRO. This working group agreed the rationale and workflow for the mapping process to ensure fairness across the Scheme.

As regards the basis for the designations, the NPWS provided and reviewed nature data for the mapping process, with the selection of the zones for the ACRES Co-operation approach based on the following designations/criteria:

- SACs

- SPAs

- NHAs

- All offshore islands

- Burren region

- Corncrake LIFE areas

- Breeding Hen Harrier Regions

- Curlew breeding areas

- Wild Atlantic Nature areas

- River sub-basins known to have large areas of Annex I grasslands

- Blue Dot Catchments

Farmers with three hectares or more, or 20% or more of the farm holding (whichever is the lower), declared as forage/habitat in their 2021 BPS, falling within an ACRES Co-operation area may only apply for the ACRES Co-operation approach. The relevant forage crop codes are listed in Annex 4 of the Scheme Terms and Conditions, which are available on my Department’s website at www.gov.ie/ACRES.

A farmer may only apply for the ACRES General if their holding falls outside of the high priority geographical area as defined for the ACRES Co-operation approach. A map of the eight designated zones may also be found on my Department’s website at www.gov.ie/ACRES along with other Scheme material.

Where an applicant considers, given the criteria above, that they have been assigned to the incorrect approach, either General or Co-operation, they should contact their advisor in the first instance. The advisor, if in agreement that the applicant has been assigned to the wrong stream, should then contact my Department outlining the basis for their view and this will be reviewed.