Farm View: 2022 is the year to be a BPS early bird
While all your 2022 figures are fresh in your mind after filling in the BPS application, you can use the DAFM’s new payment and stocking rate calculators to predict how the new CAP will treat you in 2023.
The online facility for BPS applications opened on February 16, and by March 28, no fewer than 24,000 early birds had already lodged their applications.
It is a good year to move early, while also taking the time to look ahead to 2023 to assess how the completely new CAP from January 1 next will affect your future farm income.
For example, while all your 2022 figures are fresh in your mind after filling in the BPS application, you can use the DAFM’s new payment and stocking rate calculators to predict how the new CAP will treat you in 2023. The calculators can be found on the www.gov.ie/cap/ website.
The number of entitlements will stay the same but the value of each will be adjusted, in 2023.
At CAP 2023-2027 public information meetings in March, a payment calculator example was shown for a farmer who currently has 30 entitlements and 30 eligible hectares, and an existing (2022) BPS plus greening total per entitlement of €260.
In 2023, this farmer could typically expect a Basic Income Support Scheme (BISS) payment of €155 per entitlement (total of €4,656); scope for eco-scheme payments of €2,310; and a Complementary Redistributive Income Support for Sustainability (CRISS) payment of €1,294, for a payments total of €8,260 (€461 per year more than the farmer's current direct payments).
In this example, the same BISS payment continues in 2024, 2025, and 2026, because the farmer is already receiving a BPS plus greening close to the average national value, and therefore his BISS is not subject to convergence up or down. The new BISS will continue to be paid based on payment entitlements, with all values converging to 85% of the national average (expected to be almost €135) by 2026.
In this example, the new CISYF (young farmer) and coupled support payment do not apply.
If using the calculator for your own farm, you can get your BPS plus greening value by adding 44% to the entitlement unit value shown on your 2022 statement of entitlements, or by dividing your total BPS and greening payment by the number of entitlements.
Equally useful is the stocking rate calculator. A farmer can fill in his expected 2022 hectares in grassland and tillage, and 2022 cattle ages and numbers per month, plus details of any sheep, goats, equines, or deer, and the calculator will provide a number of important details for the new CAP in 2023.
Built into the calculator are new stocking coefficients for 2023, such as a suckler cow being 0.8 of an LU, under one year old is 0.4, one to two years is 0.7, and sheep and goats reduced to 0.1.
This stocking rate data (on farms where stock are kept) will play a key role in the new CAP scheme, in terms of livestock unit and kgs of organic nitrogen per hectare.
The calculator will indicate if you are an active farmer (for which stocking rate must exceed 0.10 livestock units per hectare), thus qualifying for payments in the new CAP. It will also indicate how the farmer is fixed for participation in two important eco-scheme practices from 2023 on.Â
They are “Extensive Livestock Production” (stocking rate between 0.1 and 1.5LU/ha); and “Limiting Chemical Nitrogen Usage”, in which you reduce chemical nitrogen below a specified limit based on your stocking rate in the previous year. These are two of the several eco-scheme options, and you must adopt one or two of them on your farm to earn an eco-scheme annual payment.
It will be only on certain environmental grounds that less than 0.1 livestock units per hectare will be allowed for the BISS, eco-scheme, or Areas of Natural Constraints, in the new CAP from 2023.
Meanwhile, those seeking help with their BPS application for this year can attend an advice clinic where they can meet one-to-one with a department official, and make their BPS application there and then if they want to.
Among the remaining clinics are four in Munster: at Firgrove Hotel, Mitchelstown, Co Cork today (April 14); Treacys West County Hotel, Ennis, Co Clare (April 28); Castle Hotel, Macroom, Co Cork (May 4); and Brandon Hotel, Tralee, Co Kerry (May 5). All four clinics are from 9:30am to 3pm.
Those who already submitted their BPS application and who now want to take on additional land, or change the crop type, can log back into agfood.ie to make any amendments, before the deadline of May 16.
