Ireland's State of the Environment Report 2024

262 Chapter 10: Environment and Agriculture 4. Supporting farmers to make changes 11 www.gov.ie/en/service/f5a48-agri-climate-rural-environment-scheme-acres/ (accessed 31 May 2024). There are many projects, schemes and other mechanisms in place that are working to support farmers to make the necessary changes. Many positive actions are being carried out on farm, but it is as yet unclear whether collectively they will be adequate to achieve the level of environmental improvement that is required. The Agricultural Sustainability Support and Advice Programme (ASSAP) ASSAP is a free, confidential and voluntary advisory programme established to work with farmers to improve water quality. It was established under the River Basin Management Plan 2018–2021, and it is co-funded by the government and industry. There are currently well over 40 advisers operating under the programme, including 20 from Teagasc and the remainder from Dairy Industry Ireland. The ASSAP advisers work closely with the Local Authority Waters Programme (LAWPRO) catchment science team, which carries out local scientific investigations in priority water bodies where water quality is unsatisfactory. Armed with the evidence of specifically what and where the agricultural water quality issues are from the LAWPRO team, the ASSAP advisers then engage with the relevant farmers to agree farm actions to improve water quality. The LAWPRO team also engages with other relevant bodies where non-agricultural sources of pollution are identified, for example local authorities, the DAFM Forestry Division, Coillte and Uisce Éireann. This approach ensures that an integrated catchment-specific approach is taken to address the issues. ASSAP reports that the rate of engagement of farmers in the programme is very high, with 96% of farmers approached agreeing to take part. Farmers receive advice on land management, nutrient management and farmyard management, with issues categorised according to their risk of having an impact on water quality. The key issues requiring action are the management of nutrients, especially diffuse losses of phosphorus and sediment in surface run-off, and the management of farmyards, including manure storage and reducing nitrogen leaching. Action plans are drawn up with each farmer to mitigate the issues (Teagasc, 2021a). The Tirlán Farming for Water: River Slaney Project is building on the ASSAP approach to provide additional support to farmers in the Slaney catchment, which has been identified in EPA water quality reports as a catchment of concern. The project is a collaborative approach in which Tirlán advisers are working with suppliers in key areas to create individual tailored plans to reduce nutrient losses. Farm sustainability payments are also available for undertaking specific actions on farm. Further work is needed to collect sufficient information on the measures that have been implemented to provide direct evidence linking farmers’ actions to water quality outcomes to demonstrate the effectiveness of these programmes. Agri-environmental schemes The flagship agri-environmental scheme as part of the current CAP Strategic Plan is known as ACRES. 11 The scheme came into effect in 2023 and replaced the previous scheme known as the Green, Low carbon, Agri-environmental Scheme or GLAS. The ACRES scheme is backed by €1.5 billion of public funding over 5 years and is targeted at improving the delivery of ecological services on farm through two separate streams: ACRES General and ACRES Cooperation. ACRES General is accessible to all farmers and offers a range of actions for individual farmers, both targeted and general. ACRES Cooperation is available to farmers in defined high-priority geographical areas, and involves results- based payments and bespoke farm and landscape actions. ACRES Cooperation farmers are supported by a project team. Both approaches require the preparation of a farm sustainability plan that is completed and submitted by an accredited ACRES farm adviser. A total of 46,000 farmers were approved to participate under the first tranche of ACRES, and a further 9000 farmers in tranche 2, greatly surpassing the original target of 30,000 farmers in total. In addition, there are some other smaller schemes and projects in place that are targeted specifically at improving biodiversity and other environmental assets on farm, for example the National Parks and Wildlife Service Farm Plan Scheme.