Agri-Climate Rural Environment Scheme (ACRES)

ACRES is Ireland's new agri-environment climate scheme under Ireland's CAP Strategic Plan. This new €1.5 billion flagship agri-environment scheme is a farmer-friendly scheme to help address biodiversity decline while delivering an income support for up to 50,000 farm families in Ireland.

Advisors should visit ACRES advisors for information and guides.

General: available nationally (outside of the high priority geographical area defined for the ACRES Co-operation approach) and offers a range of actions for individual farmers, both targeted and general.

Co-operation: available to farmers in defined high priority geographical areas, and involves results-based payments as well as bespoke farm and landscape actions. Contracts have been awarded for the management of Co-operation Projects (CP), and farmers will be supported by new teams, who will develop local action plans for their zones.

Check out map of each of the zones and the teams who will manage them:

The ACRES Co-operation Project (ACRES CP) uses a qualitative approach whereby all forage land included in the scheme will be assessed using results-based score cards with incentives in place to increase scores and improve the landscape being farmed. For more information, visit the farmers in ACRES CP page.

The ‘Review of ACRES commonage scores – January 2025’ document outlines the way in which an ACRES participant may request a review of the scores assigned to the commonage which forms part of their ACRES contract. The document outlines the steps in the review process.

Full list of actions and specifications for farmers in ACRES:

ACRES General offers a maximum of €7,311 a year. The level of payment a farmer may achieve will be determined by the payment rates for the actions selected and undertaken satisfactorily.

Co-operation offers a maximum of €10,500 a year with a maximum results-based payment of €7,000 with an extra non-productive investment and landscape maximum of €3,500. The level of payment will be determined by results-based scorecards, non-productive investments, and landscape actions, which will be designed for land-types and region.

Table 1: Payments per measure

Table 2: ACRES General (General Actions)

Table 3: Results-based actions (ACRES General)

Low Input Grassland 2 (ACRES General)

Low Input Peat Grassland 2

Table 4: Results Based Actions (ACRES Co-operation)

Grassland, Peatland, Scrubland – Results-based payment

Table 5: Commonage 3 (ACRES General and ACRES Co-operation)

Commonage (ACRES General and ACRES Co-op)

1. Breeding females that produce a registered offspring above the basic eligibility requirements will be paid an additional payment of €75 per progeny registered up to overall maximum payment ceiling

2. Participants may apply for a late meadow bonus payment of €50/ha

3. Participation payment set at €50/ha on the first 20 hectares irrespective of results-based score. The results based payment rates are inclusive of this participation payment Commonage (<10ha) €120/ha

Visit the ACRES terms and conditions, specifications and circulars page.

gov.ie - A description of the AgriSnap app, its use and where to download it (www.gov.ie)

Non-Productive Investments (NPIs) are actions that are available to participants in the Co-operation approach of the Agri-Climate Rural Environment Scheme (ACRES) to address environmental issues on the farm, directly contribute to environmental objectives or increase the farmers capacity to improve field scores through management. Public Consultation on the Natura Impact Report in support of the Appropriate Assessment (AA) for Certain Non-productive Investments (NPI) to be made available under the Agri-climate Rural Environment Scheme (ACRES) Co-operation Project (CP) was undertaken and the determination in relation to the availability of such NPIs is published below.

Landscape Actions (LAs) are large scale actions that are available to participants in the Co-operation approach of the Agri-Climate Rural Environment Scheme (ACRES). The LAs are targeted measures that will focus on issues such as invasive species management, encroaching scrub, threatened species and water quality protection, thereby offering benefits to the local environment. These Landscape Actions have been designed to target environmental issues, which have been highlighted in the scorecards for results-based payments and are causing a reduction in the score achieved. The targeted implementation of these actions should improve the results-based score achieved on that field/commonage in coming years leading to an increased payment.

Data Protection / Privacy Notices provide information to our customers about what happens to their personal data in this department. The Privacy Notice for the Agri-Climate Rural Environment Scheme (ACRES) may be accessed at Data Protection Privacy Notices