New Acres scheme

Silverdream

Mods please amalgamate if there's another thread, I just can't find it if there is. The search on Boards is poor

Back to the new Acres Scheme.

If the acres is going to be based on a points system similar to the Reap scheme does that mean you have to be scored every year? That reap scheme looked a pure balls, i don't know how you could get an any way decent payment as they are looking for so many varieties of plants in the low input pasture and also in the Hay meadows. With ours we'd be lucky to see 2 or 3 in the grassland. Then the right kick in the hole is thistles, docks, rushers, moss and ragwort are considered weeds and attract a negative marking.

It looks like another payment cut in the guise of a results based system. We got cut from reps to Glas and now this is going to be another cut. If the scheme isn't going to pay a fair price for the activities then why would anyone bother.

I think a lot of applicants are going to get a shock when it comes to results time.

minerleague

The purpose of these schemes should be to attract the" middle of the road" farmer to become slightly less intensive and leave extra room for nature. there are more intensive farmers at one end who wont/cant change too much unless forced to and more extensive farmers who are already doing what these schemes want already. It seems to me that if headline figures of 7 or 10K that were put out early prove hard/impossible to achieve in reality or require constant inspection maybe uptake wont be what they expect.

Diarmuid B

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058258165/new-acres-scheme

I got into the pilot REAP scheme and to be honest it’s some of the handiest money you’ll make. Very little needed to be done with the fields that you put into it provided they are low input pasture and you’re not ploughing slurry and fertiliser on them fields. Basically pick the fields that you have that you can’t farm intensively (wet fields/boggy ground/stoney ground etc etc).

with this new scheme some of the conditions to meet to get the payments are so simple. Use LESS slurry spreading, plant a hedge or a bunch of trees, stick up a 1/2/3metre fence in from your hedge and leave it up for the summer months to let birds/animals nest. Sow some wild bird cover or strips in a field for the winter and you get more money,

I guess lads like me with poor/average can make great use of these schemes whereas your reseeded/intensive farms will find it fairly difficult to pull a good payment

_Brian

We already moved to low stock rates and weaned off fertiliser mostly. Hoping this might be an easy win.

however, our advisor said that unless you get into a tier 1 application then it’s unlikely to be successful.

Silverdream

It'll be interesting to see the payment levels. I hope I'm wrong but I think the Cabbage head Ryan has got his way in getting "visual tangible" green measures. So the days of just getting the form filling right are about to end. Inspection based payments on the way

kk.man

I'm seriously thinking of not joining up. Might go more intensive.

Dinzee Conlee

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119452335#Comment_119452335

I’m the same Brian - little stock, no fertiliser…

I’d be afraid of the tier 1 thing as well - I think it will be over subscribed, as lots of people have gone down the extensive, little fertiliser route and see this as an ‘easy win’

I’ll be annoyed if I don’t get in, the few bob I make from the farm, you could say the GLAS payment accounts for a lot of it… No GLAS/ACRES payment would be a big sting for me… 🙁

Young95

is this scheme open yet ?

Base price

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119455955#Comment_119455955

I was iffy about extending the GLAS scheme again this year but we did. However I doubt we will be joining the new ACRES scheme and it's not to do with going more intensive but more to do with taking back control on how we farm our land - the way we want too. We don't use artificial fertilizer except for establishing the GLAS wild bird cover.

tanko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119456066#Comment_119456066

No, not yet.

Silverdream

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119456114#Comment_119456114

It's the amount of hoops you have to jump through now to get a few quid. Counting grass types, taking pictures on apps then uploading them, fencing off this and that from God knows what. Then the big headline in the Farmers junknel that there's payments of over €1k/hectare to be got, but what they failed to mention is you are planting Trees in that hectare so it's gone forever then.

Kinda thinking the same now and might not bother with it. For the few k you get it takes the enjoyment out of farming and introduces a ball of stress. Average payment in Glass was over 4k for Farmers, the way things are gone you'd need 8k today to be the same value but wait and see you'll be doing well to get what you got in Glas.

I'll see what these advisors come up with, it'll be another field day for them but this time if I don't like the plan then he can shove it up his hole

Birdnuts

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119455290#Comment_119455290

That had to happen - the days of money for old rope were not going to pass EU auditors going forward

Hershall

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119455955#Comment_119455955

I did the AETS course last week your planner will score the lipp in yr 1 3 and 5. Most of the weeds i have are negatively marked. It would suit a big farm being extensively farmed if the suitable weeds/plants were present.

Young95

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119456299#Comment_119456299

What’s the AETS coarse for ?or stand for ?

tanko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119456291#Comment_119456291

EU auditors don’t seem to have a problem with armchair farmers getting tens of thousands of euros every year based on what they did twenty years ago, funny that isn’t it, any amount of money for old rope there.

SuperTortoise

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119456337#Comment_119456337

I've honestly given up on trying to remember, done that course last month and the one thing that stuck in my head was the shear ammount of new names put on essentially the same thing.

As for the new scheme, i'm really undecided, could do with the few pound but i don't want to spend 5 years jumping through hoops for it, there's a real smack of the boiling frog in the pan about the whole thing, get enough of us to sign up to basically neglect our land for 5 years, and just like the BPS they will pay just enough that we have to sign up but not enough to make a living.

Tempted to tell them to stick it.

Hard Knocks

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119456408#Comment_119456408

Is the course a must do or good to have?

ruwithme

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119456299#Comment_119456299

On the weeds in lipp, nettles & thistles present in same are regarded as a negative thing, this i cannot understand????? You won't find very many thistles & nettles in land anyway intensively farmed.

Recently only topped the lipp in glas & the hood of the topper was moving with a sorts of creepy Crawleys e.t.c after the cutting. Are these not the kind of lads they want.

Obviously need to wait & see on the new scheme as rates & specific measures are uncertain for now.but can see myself likely waiting until others jump in for their 1st year & get a handle on it.

In glas things were chopped & changed during the first number of tranches when opened.

amacca

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119456545#Comment_119456545

Id agree, surely thistles etc would be good for pollinators etc....flowering plants ??????

You would think if its called low input pasture it should be let it grow the way it does naturally not just an artificial selection.....if you get negatively marked on plants that naturally grow yhere does that not just incentivise spraying them....which removes a plant those insects use???

Is there ever any justification for negative scoring of those plants? .... do farm organisations ever ask for a scientific underpinning for these scoring systems...

ruwithme

The planners who delivered the one day course, even said you could spot spray the negative nettles & thistles in lipp as boom isn't allowed & spot is.

Imagine lads out in year one spot spraying the nettles & thistles in the hope of a better score come year 3 on the assessment card

ACA members seemingly had more involvement in the drawing up of this new scheme more than any scheme in the past according to the planners.

SuperTortoise

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119456520#Comment_119456520

Not compulsory no, my planner advised to do it, get payed for the day as well so not too bad i suppose.

tanko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119456520#Comment_119456520

You can do it in the pub in Ballymagovern😎

Birdnuts

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119456346#Comment_119456346

Thats a separate issue - in any case you would want to take it up with successive governments and the main farming orgs who continue to staunchly oppose changes in that area. I would also point out that CAP has been moving away from a production subs based payment for nearly 30 years now

Birdnuts

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119456620#Comment_119456620

That does sound like a clusterfook alright - alot of the problems with earlier schemes was the lack of training and knowledge among the planners themselves, doesn't say much for ACA either:(

Hershall

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119456520#Comment_119456520

Good to have. You get 156 euro whether you join scheme or not.

Hershall

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119456545#Comment_119456545

Rushes, thistles, docks and nettles all of which i have are negative because they do not sequester carbon. You couldn't make it up.......

Hard Knocks

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119456666#Comment_119456666

Thanks for the invite, have we a taxi

Dinzee Conlee

I see the journal has some more detail on this today…

Has anyone had a look, and if there is actually much detail behind the headline?

https://www.farmersjournal.ie/payment-rates-for-acres-revealed-715380

Cavanjack

For those who say they are not joining. Will we now not need to be in an environmental scheme to hold onto our full payments in the new cap?

amacca

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119457133#Comment_119457133

Such bullshit......I'm probably displaying my ignorance here but if a green plant grows and in the process takes in carbon dioxide for photosynthesis and makes some of that carbon part of its bid and root system + breaks up soil with said root......how could it not be sequestering carbon and aiding the soil to be less compacted and healthier therefore more able to sequester?

Not to mention provide foot etc for pollinators?

Are the just looking for excuses not to pay snd make more of a job for de lads....

I can't figure out why they aren't challenged on stuff like this if it is bullshit...