Greening: 30% of single payment can be held
However, the vast majority (80%) of Irish farmers will automatically qualify for the greening payment. If more than 75% of one’s land is in permanent pasture, one will automatically qualify under the green-by-definition rule, as long as one does not have more than 30 hectares of arable land, which most mixed farms would not have.
Farmers who do not automatically qualify must protect permanent pasture, within reason. They must have crop diversity, with at least two crops up to a certain threshold, and three crops thereafter.
They will be required to plan for an ecological focus area on their farms, which must constitute 5%, and then 7%, of the holding. They will be permitted to grow certain qualifying crops in that ecological focus area. “This is not a set-aside, as farmers would have seen it in the past; it is an area of the farm which will add to the biodiversity on the farm and make a positive contribution towards encouraging wildlife.”
* According to Pat McCarthy, of the United Farmers’ Association, some farmers will get as little as €25 per hectare for greening, while others get more than €250 — because it is a variable payment linked to the existing single farm payment.
