Areas of Natural Constraints Scheme maximum payment will rise to €4,240 per farm in 2019
The maximum annual payment in the Areas of Natural Constraints Scheme in 2019 for the farmers with the poorest land will increase to €4,240, pending EU permission for a formal amendment to the Rural Development Programme which is now under way, to ensure that the Scheme can open for application early in 2019.
The revised maximum payment compares with €3,400 in 2017, and has been made possible by boosting the scheme with about €50m of additional government funding in the last two budgets. Of the additional €23m added for 2019, about €12m will go to lands newly eligible in 2019, after the the EU-required re-designation of land based on new bio-physical criteria.
