The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) has issued a further update on Basic Income Support for Sustainability (BISS) applications.

A spokesperson for DAFM has told Agriland that up to and including March 15, the department had received 22,139 BISS and other area-based scheme applications.

20,221 applications have been submitted by agents and 1,918 have been submitted by farmers.

The spokesperson noted that "14,208 applications were submitted at this time last year".

21,263 applications have been submitted for Areas of Natural Constraints scheme (ANC) and 21,690 for the Eco-Scheme.

DAFM

Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Martin Heydon announced on February 13 that the application process for the 2026 BISS, Complementary Redistributive Income Support for Sustainability (CRISS), Eco-Schemes and the other related schemes had opened.

Farmers are being reminded that the closing date for BISS applications is Friday, May 15, 2026.

The department is again planned to run a number of BISS in-person clinics this year to help farmers in making online applications for BISS and other area-based farm schemes.

"Details are currently being finalised and will be announced shortly," the DAFM spokesperson said.

Any farmer who wants to contact the department in relation to their online scheme application they can do by calling:

049 4368288 in relation to queries on registering for Agfood.ie – for example queries on lost passwords, how to register;
057 8674422 in relation to queries on completing the BISS application once registered on www.agfood.ie or to request a paper copy of the terms and conditions.