Irish farmers in danger of paperwork fatigue
Farmers are well paid for their paperwork, with about €1.4bn delivered to Irish farmers under the new CAP Strategic Plan since last October.
With nitrates rules changing every year or even more frequently, and the main CAP schemes application period coming up, there's a danger of "paperwork" fatigue.
Recently, the ball started rolling again, with applications for direct payments schemes such as BISS, CRISS, Eco-Schemes and ANC opening.
Since the New Year, farmers were also invited to take part in schemes such as the Multi-Species Sward and Red Clover Silage Measures, the 2024 Traditional Farm Buildings Grant Scheme, the Native Woodland Conservation Scheme, and the Sheep Improvement Scheme for new entrants. The €60m Farming for Water EIP has just been launched, with great fanfare, but hopefully applications for that will open at a quieter time of the year.
Of course, farmers are well paid for their paperwork, with about €1.4bn delivered to Irish farmers under the new CAP Strategic Plan since last October. This includes payments under the Basic Income Support for Sustainability (BISS), the Areas of Natural Constraints Scheme, Eco Scheme, and the Organic Farming Scheme.
With such big payments involved, deadlines must be observed, all the Ts crossed and the Is dotted. It hasn't been easy, with a new CAP programme starting in 2023, changing the values of all the payment entitlements farmers were used to in the predecessor Basic Payment Scheme (BPS). Instead of the BPS and Greening, farmers had to get used to the BISS, ECO, CRISS, CISYF or VCS. The payments involved in each helped to concentrate their minds.
It turned out that one of the most troublesome new acronyms was AMS, the Area Monitoring System required under new EU regulations. Sold to farmers as a big reduction in the number of on-farm physical inspections, this system of policing payments by satellite inspections (gathered automatically every five days) had a sting in the tail. It found fault with the payment applications of more than 9,300 farmers, alleging they had ineligible features on their lands for which they claimed area payments.
After years of trouble-free payment applications, thousands of farmers got "red parcel" AMS notifications. In many cases, it might have been a quarter acre around sheds.
It was fairly easily resolved for most farmers, albeit at the cost of a small portion of their annual payment.
Unfortunately, every year there are farmers with even bigger problems, who don't cope well with the paperwork.
That's why there were still what the DAFM called "low single-digit" percentages of farmers still waiting for their main annual payments as Christmas came and went.
On February 27, the Agriculture Minister revealed that about 7,000 eco-scheme applications were still being processed, with almost 117,000 having been paid. However, some were believed to be double applications.
And of course, the first payments in the new ACRES were delayed to the end of February.
Farmers with forestry involvements have perhaps had the worst paperwork experiences. Huge delays in processing the licence applications necessary for any forestry activity were a major factor in reducing annual afforestation in Ireland to not much more than 2,000 hectares in 2020, 2021, and 2022. There were expensive delays for many farmers waiting for felling licences.
Nor has the Targeted Agricultural Modernisation Scheme gone well for farmers, with some applicants for grants left waiting a year.
The farmers with the worst paperwork troubles may have identified themselves when Agriculture Minister Charlie McConalogue told the February EU Council for Agriculture Ministers, "Farmers are committed to improving the sustainability of their operations, but it is critically important that in pursuing this objective, we do not make life impossibly complex for them".
He was commenting on the proposals in the Council to "rationalise" member state controls and increase flexibility for farmers who make genuine errors in their applications.
It was also agreed at that meeting to go direct to every farmer in the EU with an online survey, to gather directly their views on reducing their burden by simplifying the bureaucracy and paperwork. This was one of the relatively minor concessions made by the EU in the face of a huge wave of farmer protest across the continent.
The European Commission has now delivered on that commitment, inviting farmers to participate in the survey.
If nothing else, completing the survey will allow farmers to complain about their main bugbear paperwork troubles. And if they get something wrong, they won't lose money.
The survey is open from March 7 to April 8, asking questions such as: How much time is spent each year on administrative tasks linked to application of aid and reporting obligations? Do they use mobile devices to provide geo-tagged photos? How do they rate the complexity of different procedures and rules applicable on farms? Did they use outside help to prepare CAP aid application in 2023?
The Commission says the answers provided by farmers will help it understand their main sources of concern, and identify the sources of administrative burden and complexity. They promise to have preliminary results of the survey in mid-April.
The survey can be found here.
