Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 23 May 2017
561. Deputy Michael Fitzmaurice asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the reason redigitised plots on his Department's systems are given a zero maximum eligible area; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [24478/17]
View answerEach year farmers are required to declare all land holdings that they farm and wish to draw down area based payments on. The Department's mapping system - Land Parcel Identification System (LPIS), has a unique identifier for each block of land on the system, known as a parcel number. Each parcel has an attribute, known as the Maximum Eligible Area (MEA), which is the eligible area for payment. The MEA can range from zero in the case of farm yards, to the total area of the parcel, in the case of agricultural land fully farmed and with no waste e.g. scrub.
At application time farmers or their agents may wish to update the parcel information. This can be due to a number of reasons e.g. changes to land eligibility due to scrub reclamation, or reductions due to farm yard development and extension. In these situations the change can be made by the addition of a plot to the application. This plot indicates that a parcel needs to be amended and the underlying eligibility reviewed. While the plot may at application time not have an MEA, this is simply due to the fact that the parcel it relates to has to go through the redigitising process. Once this is complete the appropriate MEA will be assigned based on the information provided by the applicant and the review of the imagery that the Department has for the land in question.
