Agri-environmental schemes in Ireland

550sheep

Hi all,

I recently inherited a 90 acre farm in Co. Galway. Its about 2/3s rough and 1/3 good pasture. I have entered GLAS already but no news back yet.

Its my first time to be managing a farm by myself - my uncle left it to me and I have been living and working in Dublin for the last nine years. My parents weren't active farmers when I was growing up either.

I just have a couple of questions about GLAS, or these schemes in general

Have you had good experiences with the schemes in the past? And why is it every farmer in the country doesn't take them up if they are so good?

Is there a large level of work involved? And is it worth the money you get?

Are you likely to get your work checked?

Are they schemes getting better or worse in you opinion? You know with the recession and all.

What is the point in the schemes. Do thye really work? The opinion of my Dublin friends who are from the country and farming backgrounds it they monies are like social welfare for farmers. that is not my view and that's why I'm trying to find out if I should take it seriously.

I hope to jesus I haven't insulted anyone involved in farming because I do know how lucky I am to inherit land and my uncle worked 24/7 up until he passed away.

djmc

Every scheme is different in the past eg. Reps 4 IMO was worth joining aeos was not.
Almost always during a scheme you will be inspected at least once and the work you carried out will be inspected.
As glas is a new scheme no one knows what it is like yet or the amount of work you will have to do
It will also depend on what options pick some require more work than others.
Inspectors vary too some are fairer than others
As for payments being like social welfare
Most farm produce is sold below cost of production if you take production costs and labour into it so in a way they are right
Without the money from schemes or an off farm job very few would have an average wage from farming.

west79

550sheep wrote: »

Hi all,

I recently inherited a 90 acre farm in Co. Galway. Its about 2/3s rough and 1/3 good pasture. I have entered GLAS already but no news back yet.

Its my first time to be managing a farm by myself - my uncle left it to me and I have been living and working in Dublin for the last nine years. My parents weren't active farmers when I was growing up either.

I just have a couple of questions about GLAS, or these schemes in general

Have you had good experiences with the schemes in the past? And why is it every farmer in the country doesn't take them up if they are so good?

Is there a large level of work involved? And is it worth the money you get?

Are you likely to get your work checked?

Are they schemes getting better or worse in you opinion? You know with the recession and all.

What is the point in the schemes. Do thye really work? The opinion of my Dublin friends who are from the country and farming backgrounds it they monies are like social welfare for farmers. that is not my view and that's why I'm trying to find out if I should take it seriously.

I hope to jesus I haven't insulted anyone involved in farming because I do know how lucky I am to inherit land and my uncle worked 24/7 up until he passed away.

Study the plan and do what is on it and you will be fine. The penalties would be serious if you are caught not having things done. Just pay some guy to do the work if you do not have the time to do it

550sheep

Thank you for the information. Can I just ask - what was it about AEOS that made it not worth it?

blue5000

550sheep wrote: »

Thank you for the information. Can I just ask - what was it about AEOS that made it not worth it?

It's worth about half as much to farmers compared to the older REPS scheme.

djmc

blue5000 wrote: »

It's worth about half as much to farmers compared to the older REPS scheme.

It was very hard to get even half it also caused delays in other payments and cost more to implement than what you'd get out of it for me anyway.

50HX

550sheep wrote: »

Hi all,

I recently inherited a 90 acre farm in Co. Galway. Its about 2/3s rough and 1/3 good pasture. I have entered GLAS already but no news back yet.

Its my first time to be managing a farm by myself - my uncle left it to me and I have been living and working in Dublin for the last nine years. My parents weren't active farmers when I was growing up either.

I just have a couple of questions about GLAS, or these schemes in general

Have you had good experiences with the schemes in the past? And why is it every farmer in the country doesn't take them up if they are so good?
Yes - these schemes don't suit high stocking rates

Is there a large level of work involved? And is it worth the money you get?
initially maybe a labour & low cost outlay depends on the measure - yes worth the money

Are you likely to get your work checked?
for glas - Tier 1 applications are more likely to be inspected

Are they schemes getting better or worse in you opinion? You know with the recession and all.
much the same only spread across more schemes

What is the point in the schemes. Do thye really work? The opinion of my Dublin friends who are from the country and farming backgrounds it they monies are like social welfare for farmers. that is not my view and that's why I'm trying to find out if I should take it seriously.
i think they do work - look at the nitrates restrictions in Reps and we are told our watercourses have improved

I hope to jesus I haven't insulted anyone involved in farming because I do know how lucky I am to inherit land and my uncle worked 24/7 up until he passed away.

Best of luck with it & at least you appreciate what you have got which is a good attitude & will give you a good start
welcome to the madhouse:)

550sheep

Hi 50HX,

Many thanks for the extensive reply. I'm really looking forward to learning about farming. Theres actually a lot too it. I bought a secondhand ag science book online to try to get a handle on it. It would have been great to have shadowed my uncle for a time. To think of all that knowledge being gone forever. I'm sure he learned it all from his father. I wonder should there be a new scheme to encourage farmers to record how they graze their animals!!

No land is SAC - although I do plan to be very conscientious in the work I must carry out. I'm just worried that my gauge of standards will be less than the inspector and I'll get fined. Like a previous poster said I can contract the work out - but I was hoping to do it myself. I'm available to farm full time for now until I can find a job to complement the farm work.

My main incentive for carrying out the work isn't strictly financial (although I cant afford to loose money either because I haven't a whole lot of it! Last few years ALL of my 'extra income' went into some landlords pocket). I'm trying to plan for way down the road- to slowly improve my farm for wildlife at the lowest cost to myself. I'd really like to learn about grazing for encouraging species rich grasslands and that. My rationale is (and I know I'm mad) this 'rough' area of the farm..well its not very productive anyway. So I thought that I might as well try to make it more attractive in terms of plants species and then maybe down the line there will be money in it. It's like the financial stock market - if wildlife continues to get scarcer and scarcer then the value inceases and the incentive to pay farmers to keep will increase.

Anyhow - I know that I'm probably mad!

Capercaillie

550sheep wrote: »

Hi 50HX,

Many thanks for the extensive reply. I'm really looking forward to learning about farming. Theres actually a lot too it. I bought a secondhand ag science book online to try to get a handle on it. It would have been great to have shadowed my uncle for a time. To think of all that knowledge being gone forever. I'm sure he learned it all from his father. I wonder should there be a new scheme to encourage farmers to record how they graze their animals!!

No land is SAC - although I do plan to be very conscientious in the work I must carry out. I'm just worried that my gauge of standards will be less than the inspector and I'll get fined. Like a previous poster said I can contract the work out - but I was hoping to do it myself. I'm available to farm full time for now until I can find a job to complement the farm work.

My main incentive for carrying out the work isn't strictly financial (although I cant afford to loose money either because I haven't a whole lot of it! Last few years ALL of my 'extra income' went into some landlords pocket). I'm trying to plan for way down the road- to slowly improve my farm for wildlife at the lowest cost to myself. I'd really like to learn about grazing for encouraging species rich grasslands and that. My rationale is (and I know I'm mad) this 'rough' area of the farm..well its not very productive anyway. So I thought that I might as well try to make it more attractive in terms of plants species and then maybe down the line there will be money in it. It's like the financial stock market - if wildlife continues to get scarcer and scarcer then the value inceases and the incentive to pay farmers to keep will increase.

Anyhow - I know that I'm probably mad!

What wildlife do you wish to encourage?

550sheep

Capercaillie wrote: »

What wildlife do you wish to encourage?

The farm is close to a wooded area, so I expect if I improve my hedgerow with broadleaf trees etc - them whatever's living in the woods might use the farm too.
More birds would be nice.

For plants I'm going to try to restore a wet meadow. It hasn't been cut in decades for hay - but my farther remembers the practice. But I have to seek advice on this as I'm no expert. I'm hoping it will be as easy as applying seed from another hay meadow. You can get donor sites I hear. I think the improvement for wildlife would also make the fields more productive oeverall. It would be cool to be able to get hay out of them again. Other than that the only opportunity I see is hedgerows - so it would be great if there were grants for this type of work.

This would all be limited to the rough and overgrown areas of the farm that don't have the nice sweet grass you get in the greener/imrpved part of the farm.

Capercaillie

550sheep wrote: »

The farm is close to a wooded area, so I expect if I improve my hedgerow with broadleaf trees etc - them whatever's living in the woods might use the farm too.
More birds would be nice.

For plants I'm going to try to restore a wet meadow. It hasn't been cut in decades for hay - but my farther remembers the practice. But I have to seek advice on this as I'm no expert. I'm hoping it will be as easy as applying seed from another hay meadow. You can get donor sites I hear. I think the improvement for wildlife would also make the fields more productive oeverall. It would be cool to be able to get hay out of them again. Other than that the only opportunity I see is hedgerows - so it would be great if there were grants for this type of work.

This would all be limited to the rough and overgrown areas of the farm that don't have the nice sweet grass you get in the greener/imropved part of the farm.

I have 4-5 acres of fen. Was totally rank and had not been mowed for years. Grazed it down at a high stocking density (2.5 LSU/Ha). Got a crop of silage off it in 2013/2014 (September cut). Even got most of it mowed in September this year and grazed the rank bits out .

Might not need to add seed to meadow, see what's in the meadow first. Best plant however to add is yellow rattle. It parasitises vigorous grasses letting slowing growing/wild flowers to grow.

Think there is a traditional hay meadow plan is GLAS.