ACRES Scheme Closing Date 2025

ACRES Scheme Closing Date 2025 – The ACRES Scheme provides payments to farmers in Ireland who carry out environmental actions on their land. But you can’t apply for this program forever as there is a deadline to submit your application each year. This article covers the all-important closing date for the 2025 ACRES Scheme. You’ll learn the exact date that applications must be submitted to be considered.

About The ACRES Scheme

The Irish government introduced a new flagship agri-environment scheme called the Agri-Climate Rural Environment Scheme (ACRES). This scheme aims to address the decline in biodiversity while delivering income support for up to 50,000 farm families. The ACRES Scheme is part of the 2023-27 Common Agricultural Policy scheme. Initially expected to cater to 30,000 farmers, high demand led to making 46,000 places available.

The ACRES Scheme provides an important program for farmers and agricultural businesses in New South Wales. It helps ensure these businesses can continue operating and contributing to the state’s economy by offering financial assistance. The scheme provides this assistance through payments to farmers for carrying out environmental actions on their holdings. The maximum payment a farmer may receive is €7,311 per year, determined by the payment rates for the selected and undertaken actions.

Benefits of The ACRES Scheme

The ACRES Scheme offers several environmental benefits. It protects water quality by intercepting the loss of sediment and nutrients from soil surfaces after mobilization through the implementation of riparian buffer strips/zones. These buffer strips also take small areas out of production and support biodiversity.

The scheme encourages farmers to maintain environmentally friendly farming systems on selected parcels of land. Lands that are extensively grazed with low inputs provide a greater environmental return in terms of biodiversity, soil structure, and water quality. These areas also benefit pollinators.

Additionally, the ACRES Scheme promotes the planting of trees and hedgerows, which provide multiple benefits. These include crop protection, improved biosecurity, water quality protection, carbon sequestration, pollen and nectar for pollinators, nesting resources for birds, and important foraging habitat for mammals like bats. Hedgerows critically connect habitats as nature corridors throughout the landscape.

The scheme also supports the maintenance of traditional dry stone walls. These walls enhance the visual landscape and are an important cultural heritage in Ireland. Dry stone walls act as nature corridors, protecting wildlife and providing significant habitats for flora and fauna.

Eligibility Criteria

Farmers can check the ACRES stream they are eligible for through agfood.ie, under the ‘ACRES Access Agreement’ button, or by texting us on 50124 with the message ‘DAFM ACRES’ followed by your herd number.

The ACRES General approach is open to all categories of active farmers eligible in the defined mapped area for ACRES General.

The ACRES Co-operation approach is open to all categories of active farmers eligible in the defined mapped area for ACRES Co-operation Project (CP) zones (shown as color-coded zones on the map above).

To be eligible to participate, an applicant must:

be aged 18 years or over on the date of submission of the application
be the holder of an active business identity. Herd ‘owner’ status is required. ‘Herd Keeper’ is not acceptable
have all lands farmed declared in the applicant’s name on the Integrated Administration and Control System (IACS)
have submitted a valid BPS 2021 application
all lands brought into the scheme must be declared in the applicant’s 2022 BPS and declared on the applicant’s Basic Income Support for Sustainability (BISS) scheme application for all subsequent years of participation

Suppose you are participating in other environmental schemes. In that case, you may apply for ACRES, but if approved you may have payments adjusted in either scheme to ensure no double funding takes place.

How to Apply

If you wish to apply for the ACRES Scheme, you need to follow the given steps below:

Applicants have to engage an approved ACRES Advisor. This is done because the application has to be made on your behalf and it has to be done by the ACRES Advisor.
Applicants can also use existing BPS advisors or if they wish they can also engage another qualified advisor.
Applicants can also get information on Agriculture Agents and the necessary things applicants are required to do to engage through the following link: Information on Agriculture Agents.