Michael McNamara (Clare, Independent)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

96. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine how he proposes to treat farmers who did not make an application for the ACRES scheme by the November 2022 deadline as they had been informed by Teagasc, a State agency under his Department, that there was insufficient capacity to deal with the number of applications and only because of the said lack of capacity of Teagasc; if farmers who make an application by August 2023 will be treated as though they had made the application in 2022; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [24769/23]

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

The 1.5bn Agri-Climate Rural Environment Scheme (ACRES) is the pioneering and flaghsip agri-environment climate measure in Ireland’s CAP Strategic Plan 2023 – 2027. It is a voluntary scheme whereby farmers, when approved into ACRES, will undertake certain actions on their land for at least five years.

Farmers have demonstrated their desire to enhance the environmental sustainability of their enterprises through their enthusiasm for ACRES.

Farmers have thereby shown that they are ready and willing to play their part and both I and the Government are happy to support their contribution to addressing the range of climate, environmental and biodiversity challenges currently being experienced.

The Government has committed €1.5 billion to ACRES over its duration with the aim of facilitating the participation of 50,000 farmers. This is a significant number so the intake into the scheme is being phased with two tranches. Tranche 1 of ACRES opened for applications on Monday 17th October 2022 and closed Wednesday 7th December 2022 and all interested farmers were eligible and encouraged to apply.

Phasing the intake into the Scheme helps to spread the workload on advisors. Intake into the Green Low Carbon Agri-environment Scheme (GLAS), the predecessor to ACRES, was also on a tranche basis for the same reason.

Tranche 1 of the scheme had originally been projected to receive some 30,000 applicants but by its closing date had received over 46,000 applications.

I was delighted to have secured sufficient funding to be able to accept all valid applications submitted for Tranche 1 into the Scheme and these successful farmers have received their formal notifications.

Tranche 1 is now closed for applications and our focus is on its implementation. For those farmers who were not in a position to apply for the Scheme in Tranche 1, they will have an opportunity to apply for it in Tranche 2. It is proposed that Tranche 2 will open for applications later this year with contracts in that Tranche to commence from 1 January 2024.

Business relations between agricultural advisors and farmers are a private matter and this falls outside of my Department’s remit. I encourage all interested farmers to remain in contact with their advisors and to fully explore the opportunities when the application process opens for Tranche 2.