William Aird (Laois, Fine Gael)
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1138. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the strategies and actions his Department is taking to ensure that the Government meets its target under the Climate Action Plan to increase the tillage area to 400,000 hectares by 2030; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [30649/25]

Martin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael)
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This Government recognises the importance of the sector and wants to grow the area under tillage crops in the years ahead. The Climate Action Plan has set a target of growing the tillage area to 400,000 hectares as a diversification measure, and the report of the Food Vision Tillage Group sets out a road map to achieve this.

My Department is engaging with stakeholders to progress the implementation of the actions in the Food Vision Tillage report. This will require collaboration and commitment from many stakeholders across the sector.

Targeted supports will continue to form part of the strategy for tillage sustainability and expansion. €32.4m was paid out under the tillage and horticultural support scheme in February 2025. The financial allocation for coupled support under the Protein Aid Scheme has been increased to €10m annually from 2024. The Straw Incorporation Measure, which was first introduced as a Pilot Scheme in 2021 and 2022, is now included in the CAP Strategic Plan 2023-2027 with an allocation of €50m over five years.

Adding value to Irish tillage crops and sharing it with farmers is key to the sector’s future. This includes investing in research and innovation, including exploring new processing and value-add opportunities. Actions addressing income volatility through taxation supports are part of the Programme for Government.

My Department remains committed to working closely with the sector in implementing these actions with a view to ensuring its long term sustainability and increasing the tillage area to 400,000 hectares by 2030.

William Aird (Laois, Fine Gael)
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1139. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if his Department will seek to remove the crop diversification rule from the next CAP; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [30650/25]

Martin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael)
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Conditionality sets the baseline requirements for farmers in receipt of CAP payments and replaces the “cross compliance” requirements in the previous CAP. Conditionality consists of Statutory Management Requirements (SMRs) and Good Agricultural and Environmental Condition (GAEC) standards.

GAEC 7 is concerned with improving soil quality and health and reducing the dependency of chemical pesticides through control of weed, pest and disease spread. It aims to achieve this through the application of Crop Rotation and/or Crop Diversification on all holdings with Arable lands except those where crops are grown under water.

Changes to GAEC7 in 2025 have made compliance with the standard more straightforward for many farmers with Crop Diversification being the only standard that many Arable farmers have to comply with.

Crop Diversification has existed in Ireland since 2015 under Greening and it is the requirement to crop multiple crops on farm. Many farmers for economic, environmental and disease control purposes see the benefits of having multiple crops. It allows the workload and the financial risk to be be spread and assists with pest and weed control.

While the benefits of multiple crops are understood, for some farmers, particularly smaller Arable farmers, multiple crops can be difficult to manage due to costs associated with extra machinery requirements or difficulties managing small areas of second or third crops.

My Department will review all elements of the current CAP, including GAEC 7, prior to the next CAP to ensure that the standards that are applied work for Irish farmers and for the environment.