The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) began the process of engaging with farm advisors in early 2022 in preparation for the launch of the Agri-Climate Rural Environment Scheme (ACRES). Advisors were invited to register their interest in participating in ACRES and were advised of the steps to be undertaken to be approved as an ACRES advisor.
To participate in ACRES, advisors were required to:
- have completed the ACRES registration process;
- be approved under the Department’s Farm Advisory System (FAS);
- attend ACRES training.
To ensure the receipt of quality applications access to the Farm Sustainability Plan (FSP) portal on the Department's GLAM platform and to the ACRES application system was only made available to advisors once all criteria were satisfied. In addition, to access the Department's systems advisors were required to have secured system access codes from the Department’s Online Services Section and to create online links with their clients to enable them make submissions on behalf of their clients.
To support the ACRES training needs of advisors my department held three ACRES training and information sessions in Carrick on Shannon and Charleville in July and in Athlone in September.
The online system for the submission of ACRES applications opened on 17th October 2022, with an initial closing date of Monday 21st November 2022, for the submission of applications under the current Tranche.
I am conscious that the submission of ACRES applications is creating a significant workload for, and pressure on, advisors. For this reason, I extended the deadline for submission of applications for ACRES Tranche 1 to 23.59 Wednesday 7th December 2022.
