Claire Kerrane (Roscommon-Galway, Sinn Fein)
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1267. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the full-year cost of expanding the straw incorporation measure to include an additional 100 participants in 2024. [37747/23]

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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The Straw Incorporation Measure (SIM) forms part of the Cap Strategic Plan (CSP) 2023 - 2027.

The CSP has an allocation of €50 million over the 5 years of the plan for SIM, which gives an indicative annual budget of €10 million, targeting some 40,000 hectares of straw incorporation annually.

Application for the Measure is via the annual Basic Income for Sustainability (BISS) and other area based schemes application process. The measure is available to all those who in adherence with the Terms and Conditions - declare the requisite eligible crops and confirm their intent to participate when completing their online BISS application.

There is no upper limit to the number of applicants who may seek to join the Measure, but where the Measure is oversubscribed a process of ranking and selection may be applied with applicants placed into tiers based on their application data.

Claire Kerrane (Roscommon-Galway, Sinn Fein)
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1268. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the estimated cost of expanding the straw incorporation measure to allow participants to receive payment for up to 60 ha of land. [37748/23]

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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The Straw Incorporation Measure (SIM) is a new scheme under Ireland's CAP Strategic Plan (CSP) 2023 - 2027. This scheme follows on from a successful two-year pilot in operation during 2021 and 2022.

The Measure is an annual voluntary scheme under which an applicant chooses to incorporate straw for a minimum of 5 hectares up to a maximum payable area of 40 hectares of eligible SIM crops from their overall holding.

The CSP has an allocation of €50 million for SIM over the 5 years of the plan, which gives an indicative annual budget of €10 million, targeting some 40,000 hectares of straw incorporation annually.

In order to increase the maximum payable area, my Department would be required to seek an amendment to the CSP. As part of this process, a significant and in-depth evaluation would be required to determine the number of potential applicants, the impact to the targeted environmental objectives as set out in the CSP and the impact on the volume of straw available for feed and bedding.

Were an amendment to be submitted and successful, the increase in the maximum payable area from 40 ha to 60 ha, would not result in any extra cost as currently the budget is fixed at €50 million over the 5 years. Where the total claimed area exceeds the total budget, ranking and selection applies and farmers with certain crops will be excluded. Farmers with only certain crops, for example oilseed rape, would be unlikely to be eligible for the scheme as the funding would be firstly assigned to applicants in higher tiers, for example those with oaten straw.

In 2023, 538 farmers submitted a claim for SIM in excess of the 40 ha maximum. If the maximum limit were to be raised to 60 ha, approximately €650,000 would be required from the budget to cover this increase if all the hectares claimed were ranked high enough to make them payable when the ranking and selection process was carried out.

Claire Kerrane (Roscommon-Galway, Sinn Fein)
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1269. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the number of participants in the straw incorporation measure scheme in 2023; if this information can be broken down by participants receiving payment for 5 to 10 hectares,11-20 hectares, 21-30 hectares and 31-40 hectares, in tabular form. [37749/23]

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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The Straw Incorporation Measure (SIM) forms part of the Cap Strategic Plan (CSP) 2023 - 2027.

The CSP has an allocation of €50 million over the 5 years of the plan for SIM, which gives an indicative annual budget of €10 million, targeting some 40,000 hectares of straw incorporation annually.

Under the 2023 SIM, a total of 3,430 applications have been received to date.

A breakdown of this figure for applications is provided below.