Dairy Equipment Scheme offers €45m

UP to €45 million of grant aid is on offer up to 2014 to farmers who invest in milking machine equipment and milk cooling, refrigeration and storage equipment.

The Dairy Equipment Scheme (DES) is open to farmers who have between 60 and 500 production units at the time of application. The minimum farming intensity requirement is 40 for recipients of milk quota in the new entrants scheme or the new entrants category of the milk quota trading scheme.

Applications for grant-aid will be assessed on several criteria which include, in order of priority: