Animal Welfare, Safety and Nutrient Storage Scheme

The Animal Welfare, Safety and Nutrient Storage Scheme gives financial aid to farmers to help improve animal welfare and production conditions. It improves competitiveness to raise farm incomes and helps tillage farmers upgrade manure storage facilities.

You can apply if you have declared a minimum of 5 hectares of “eligible land” under the Basic Payment Scheme in the year of application or preceding year. The scheme is also open to farmers who generate a minimum of 20 production units in the case of intensive enterprises.

The scheme covers a range of categories of investment including:

• animal housing and manure pits
• automatic slurry scrapers
• mass concrete tanks and precast concrete tanks including cover
• slurry store upgrades and silage pits
• fencing, pens, enclosures and cattle races
• sheep and cattle handling equipment
• farm building upgrades and rain water harvesting

You must meet the scheme’s requirements on training, planning permission and tax clearance. The funding for the scheme is limited and all applications are subject to selection criteria, such as age and costings. See the conditions of the scheme and the selection criteria marking sheet at the bottom of this page.

Grant aid is paid at the rate of 40% up to the maximum investment ceiling of €80,000 per holding. Multiple applications per tranche are allowed however the minimum amount of investment which is eligible for approval under this scheme is €2,000 per application.

Applicants who receive approval at the ceiling of €80,000 under this scheme are not eligible to apply for grants under any other TAMS II Scheme with the exception of the applications under the Low Emission Slurry Spreading (LESS) Equipment Scheme. In the case of an application by two or more eligible partners, the maximum increases to €160,000.

Applications must be submitted online through agfood.ie. If your login or password are expired and need to be renewed please contact the Department’s helpdesk at 053 9163425 .

This Scheme is provided for in the 2014-2020 Rural Development Programme of Ireland and the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development: Europe investing in rural areas.

Download the marking sheet: