THOUSANDS of western farmers who joined the ACRES Co-operative scheme were ‘sold a pup’ by the Government and Dept. of Agriculture, according to the IFA.

Average payments for participants in the ACRES Co-operative scheme worked out at only €5,100 – despite the scheme being launched with a potential maximum payment of €10,500, the IFA have stated.

Cáilín Conneely, National IFA Hill Farming Chair, said that farmers ‘were losing faith fast’ in the ACRES scheme which has nearly 21,000 participants in Galway, Mayo, Clare, Roscommon, Sligo and Leitrim.

“To rub salt into the wounds, the mechanisms to improve scores-payments for future years (i.e. Non-Productive Investments [NPIs]/Landscape Actions [LAs]) aren’t even on the pitch yet, almost three years into a five-year scheme.

“The Department and CP [Co-operation Project] Teams have serious questions to answer here on a number of issues: the low scoring; the lack of consultation; the impact of including a 100 metre buffer around turbary activity; and why NPI/LA aren’t yet functioning,” said Cáilín Conneely. He said that over recent days they had received assurances and commitments from the Dept. of Agriculture that ACRES CP teams did have meetings lined up over the coming weeks.

“I’d encourage farmers to engage and attend these meetings to get clarity on current standings and what can be done to increase payments in the years to come. NPI approvals will commence by the  end of this year, and a second window will open for NPI applications this month.

“The root cause of the problems with the ACRES scheme was that there was no consultation with farmers and the farming organisations before the scheme was drawn up: if there had been, a lot of these issues would not be arising now,” Cáilín Conneely told the Farming Tribune

Galway and Mayo are the two top counties for ACRES farmers in the country with over 11,300 in the scheme. Nationally, there are over 56,000 farmers in ACRES but nearly 1,600 have withdrawn from the scheme to date. In theory, farmers in ACRES Co-operative could achieve a maximum annual payment of €10,500 [€7k results based and €3.5k for NPIs and LAs] while those in ACRES General could receive a maximum payment of just over €7,300.

The actual payments have worked out far lower than that while nearly 7,000 farmers who received an interim payment have been overpaid on average by over €1,700 with the Department now looking for that money back.

Pictured: Caillin Conneely.