The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) issued over €2.8 million in outstanding scheme payments to farmers over the past two weeks.
The latest data published today (Friday, May 3) by the department shows that €1.15 million was paid out under the 2023 Basic Income Support for Sustainability (BISS) and Complimentary Redistributive Income Support for Sustainability (CRISS).
120,101 farmers have now received BISS and CRISS payments totalling €830 million.
The department noted that this figure includes 2023 Complementary Income Support for Young Farmers (€32.3 million) and 2023 National Reserve (€4.4 million).
Scheme payments
The data shows that an additional €339,000 was paid by the department to farmers who are in the Eco-Scheme as part of the new Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).
DAFM said that some 120,370 farmers have now been allocated a total of €308 million under the scheme
€416,820 was also paid out last week under the Targeted Agricultural Modernisation Schemes (TAMS).
The department paid out over €220,000 to farmers under the Sheep Improvement Scheme 2023.
An additional €196,000 was paid out last week to farmers for outstanding payments under the Green, Low-carbon, Agri-Environment Scheme (GLAS).
Officials also cleared an additional €139,000 for payment to farmers in the Tillage Incentive Scheme (TIS) 2023
While €150,000 was issued to participants in the National Dairy Beef Welfare Scheme 2023. Some €5.3 million has now been paid out to 8,402 farmers under this scheme.
€155,000 was paid to farmers under the 2022 Areas of Natural Constraint (ANC) and Areas of Specific Constraint (ASC) schemes.
An additional €24,700 was allocated to farmers under last year’s Fodder Support Scheme.
Organic Farming Scheme (OFS) payments worth €8,115 were issued over the past fortnight. To date, 3,848 farmers have received their 2023 OFS payment totalling €39.4 million.
Deadline
Earlier this week, the department confirmed that it has now received almost 64,000 applications for 2024 area-based schemes, including BISS.
Farmers or their advisors now have less than two weeks to submit applications as the closing date for BISS applications in 2024 is Wednesday, May 15.
Under the new Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), the Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) was replaced by BISS.
Last year, over 124,000 BISS applications were lodged with the department. Based on this figure it means that around half of farmers are yet to submit their scheme application for 2024.