In order to be eligible for the Areas of Natural Constraints (ANC) Scheme, farmers must apply for the scheme by completing the relevant section of the Basic Payment Scheme application form. Farmers may choose not to apply for the ANC scheme in any given year for a number of reasons such as changes to their farming practice, loss of eligible ANC land through the ending of lease agreements or as a result of retiring from farming.
The application process is reviewed and refined annually to ensure that it is as clear and straight forward as possible. In line with EU Regulations, all applications for the scheme are now completed using the Department’s online application system at www.agfood.ie.
When completing the Basic Payment Scheme online application, under a heading of “Other Schemes and Activities”, individuals are requested to tick a box to confirm if they wish to apply for the ANC scheme.
With regard to requests for reviews submitted to the Department, my Department does not maintain records which would readily identify the number of requests from applicants who failed to tick the ANC box.
The Agriculture Appeals Office has provided statistics concerning the total number of ANC appeals by year since the 1st of January 2016. However, the records kept by Agriculture Appeals Office do not provide a breakdown of the reasons why ANC cases are appealed and therefore it is not possible to identify how many of these cases involved a failure to tick the ANC box at application stage.
|
ANC Scheme Year
|
Total number of ANC Appeals received by the Agriculture Appeals Office
|
|
2016
|
52
|
|
2017
|
43
|
|
2018
|
28
|
|
2019
|
40
|
|
2020
|
86
|
|
Total
|
249
|
