Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 12 December 2023
601. Deputy Seán Canney asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if he would reconsider the treatment of established woodland under the ACRES scheme, as currently farmers who have extensive parts of their land under established woodland are not getting sufficient benefit for this environmental benefit from the ACRES scheme; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [54589/23]
View answerMy Department’s agri-environment scheme, ACRES, requires an agricultural activity on the parcels included in a farmer’s contract, as set out in the Terms and Conditions of the scheme.
Notwithstanding this, the new CAP Strategic Plan 2023-2027 (CSP) allows for areas of established woodland to be regarded as a beneficial feature in agricultural parcels, thus allowing for these pockets of woodland to be paid under ACRES, in certain circumstances.
Officials from my Department, together with the ACRES Co-operation Project (CP) Teams, developed a suite of ten scorecards, to enable the scoring of ACRES CP participant lands, including a woodland/scrubland scorecard. This scorecard is applied to pockets of established woodland or scrub habitats, and has the potential to reward a farmer depending on the score received.
This woodland under ACRES is separate from Forestry established under my Department’s Afforestation Scheme, which is not eligible for payment in ACRES. However, farmers that have established forestry under the Forestry Programme would of course receive annual premiums as appropriate, and may also have retained entitlements, depending on eligibility requirements.
