A farm organisation has urged for 100% of all eligible applications for nutrient storage measures to be selected under tranche 11 of the Targeted Agricultural Modernisation Scheme (TAMS 3).

The Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers' Association (ICMSA) has welcomed an increase in TAMS ranking and selection rates, but said it feels that the improvements are "too little, too late".

Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Martin Heydon recently confirmed that ranking and selection will be applied to applications submitted under tranche 11.

The minister said that priority will be given to applications under farm safety and nutrient storage schemes.

Similar to previous tranches, 100% of eligible applications under the farm safety scheme will again be selected under tranche 11.

The minister also confirmed that 75% of all eligible applications for nutrient storage measures will be selected under this tranche.

Slurry storage

Chairperson of the ICMSA’s farm business committee, Pat O'Brien said that slurry storage "needs to be at 100% selection - not 75%".

"The most pressing issue that TAMS was set up to address was and is insufficient slurry storage, so just ruling out 25% of the applicants already puts a gigantic question mark after the whole exercise," O'Brien said.

The ICMSA said while the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) has "belatedly moved to get the acceptance rates" for slurry storage up, the question now is "whether there will be enough builders available to construct these tanks".

"The pressure is on to get the work done, especially with the new storage requirements coming into force at the direction of the EU Commission," O’Brien said.

Nitrates scoring

O’Brien said that ICMSA’s position was that the department should abolish nitrates scoring in ranking and selection.

“At the moment, you get negative marks for stocking rate, and this is totally unfair," the ICMSA said. 

On the solar and low emission slurry spreading (LESS) selection rates, O’Brien questioned the "willingness of the department to support farmers on their journey towards lower emissions".

“LESS and solar being at 10% says it all," O'Brien said.

The ICMSA said that DAFM "needs to have constructive engagement" with the Department of the Environment "about including batteries in the Sustainable Energy Authority Of Ireland (SEAI) grant and increasing the SEAI grant rates for farmers".

"The solar scheme in TAMS is not working and, actually, we would argue that it’s preventing the uptake of the SEAI grant," O'Brien continued.

"We would be significantly further along in reducing our carbon footprint if solar had been grant-aided at 100% selection rate and it is frankly unbelievable that we’re still fighting for it."