The scheme has a
budget of €20,000,000 which will provide funding for an estimated 6,000
participants. If the scheme is
oversubscribed priority will be given to the following groups.
1) Farmers with more than 0.5 Ha of SAC
or SPA land.
2) Farmers with more than 0.5 Ha of
Commonage.
If places remain
after all of these applicants have been accommodated they will issue to farmers
who had been in REPS. Successful
applicants will receive a start date probably in April of 2013; their contract
period will run until the 31/12/2017. In
the event that an alternative scheme becomes available in 2014 applicants will
be able to leave AEOS without penalty to join a new scheme. This commitment by the Dept. of Agriculture,
Food and the Marine is important as it ensures that farmers are not trapped in
a scheme if a more suitable alternative exists.
The application
for payment each year will be that years SPS application and payments should
issue in November/ December each year.
The options
themselves are similar to previous schemes; the biggest change is in the
treatment of commonage. Planners will
have to access a commonage database to obtain maximum and minimum stocking
densities for each commonage and apply this to the individual farmer based on
the size of his share. The requirements
for each option are described in scheme specifications which can be downloaded
from this website.
DOWNLOAD
