Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 25 July 2023
913. Deputy Colm Burke asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine what action is being taken by his Department to ensure that the phone app AgriSnap, developed by his Department to streamline the submission of scoreboards under the new agri-climate rural environment scheme, is fit for purpose in view of recent technical issues with the app; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [35912/23]
View answerThere is significant interest in the ACRES scheme which demonstrated the enthusiasm and desire of farmers to enhance the environmental sustainability of their enterprises and I was pleased to be in a position to accept all valid applications submitted in Tranche 1. There are accordingly some 46,000 farmers currently participating in ACRES.
A key feature of ACRES is the introduction of a results-based system that rewards farmers for committed environmental effort by linking payments to the quality of environmental outcomes delivered.
All of the lands, which attract a result-based payment, have to be assessed (‘scored’) over the summer months in Years 1, 3 and 5 of the participant’s contract, by approved ACRES advisors, who have completed the mandatory in-field scorecard training. The lands of those who were approved into the Scheme under Tranche 1 therefore need to be scored this year.
AgriSnap is my Department's geotagged photograph application (app) for use on smartphones. AgriSnap enables users to take geotagged photographs using their smartphone and submit them securely to my Department in an efficient and secure manner. A geotagged photograph is one that contains the GPS location co-ordinates of the position of where the photo was captured. The location information (latitude/longitude co-ordinates) is stored in the properties of the photo and allows my Department to locate the photo to an agricultural parcel. The AgriSnap mobile app was adapted to enable advisors score parcels on site and submit the scores electronically.
For ACRES it was launched in early June and scorecards continue to be submitted on it every day. My Department released an update to the AgriSnap app in mid-June 2023 to resolve issues identified in feedback from users and we remain in regular contact with users to resolve any issues as they arise.
