Under cross compliance requirements, a farmer in receipt of direct payments, including Single Payment Scheme (SPS), Disadvantaged Areas Scheme (DAS), Rural Environment Protection Scheme 4 (REPS4) and Organics must respect the various statutory management requirements set down in EU legislation (Directives and Regulations) on the environment, food safety, animal health and welfare, and plant health and must maintain their lands in good agricultural and environmental condition (GAEC).
Under GAEC, the requirement is that farmers must "maintain soil organic matter levels through appropriate practices". If a parcel has been under tillage cropping continuously farmers must ensure through soil sampling that organic matter levels are maintained through the use of appropriate farming practices. Where organic matter levels are depleted (< 3.4% organic matter) it may be necessary, depending on soil type, to adopt farming practices that will restore organic matter levels in the soil. Compliance with this requirement will be checked in the course of cross compliance inspections.
My Department will communicate with applicants who have applied on such parcels on their SPS application in areas identified as potentially having low levels of organic matter. These applicants must determine the percentage soil organic matter levels in 2009 and where found to be less than 3.4%, remedial action appropriate for the soil type must be undertaken.
The purpose of this requirement is to ensure the protection of Irish soils. Research in this area indicates that for some soils, organic matter levels below 3.4% may expose these soils to degradation through soil erosion, compaction or declining productivity. This requirement will have limited impact on farmers involved in continuous tillage as the soil organic matter levels in most Irish soils are significantly above the threshold level of 3.4% organic matter
Further information in relation to soil organic matter and the appropriate remedial actions if required is available from Cross Compliance Farm Advisory Service advisors. In addition information on this good agricultural and environmental condition will be provided on the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food web site at www.agriculture.gov.ie. A listing of Cross Compliance Farm Advisory Service advisors is also available on the Department's web site.