Additional ACRES actions to be monitored by AMS in 2025

The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine will continue to use the Area Monitoring System (AMS) to ensure that area-based schemes have met their eligibility requirements for 2025. AMS is defined as the regular and systematic observation, tracking and assessment of agricultural activities and practices on agricultural areas using Copernicus Sentinel Satellite data.

Last year, AMS monitored the two ACRES actions, Extensively Grazed Pasture and Winter Bird Food, as part of the 2024 ACRES checks.

This year, a further five ACRES actions will be added, namely Brassica Fodder Stubble, Catch Crops, Environmental Management of Arable Fallow, Riparian Buffer Zone – Arable and Riparian Buffer Zone – Grassland, which brings to seven the total number of ACRES actions that will be monitored by AMS in 2025.

• Brassica Fodder Stubble: AMS will check for establishment of catch crop
• Catch Crops: AMS will check for establishment of catch crop
• Environmental Management of Arable Fallow: AMS will check for establishment of catch crop
• Extensively Grazed Pasture: AMS will check for mowing events during the restricted period, that is, 15 March to 1 July
• Riparian Buffer Zone - Arable: AMS will check for the presence of a grass crop and mowing events during the restricted period, that is, 1 March to 31 August
• Riparian Buffer Zone - Grassland: AMS will check for the presence of a grass crop and mowing events during the restricted period, that is, 1 March to 31 August
• Winter Bird Food: AMS will check for establishment of Winter Bird Food Crop

AMS interprets Sentinel satellite imagery which enables DAFM to determine agricultural activities on the 1.3 million declared land parcels in the country. Parcels monitored by AMS will have colour coded results: Green, Yellow or Red. Parcels flagged by AMS as green and yellow indicate a degree of confidence that the land detail in the farmer’s application has been verified by AMS and payments can be made. However, a land parcel flagged by AMS as red indicates an error which may result in a notification being issued to the applicant on their BISS online account and a delay in payments. An error could include an ineligible crop sown to meet the requirements of a particular scheme, an incorrect crop declared on BISS (different to what AMS has identified on the ground) or the presence of an ineligible feature such as a roadway or residence.

Further information relating to AMS and how an applicant should respond if issued with an AMS notification, is available under Section 16 of the BISS Terms and Conditions which can be found here.

AMS may be complemented with follow up checks on the ground by an inspector to provide further clarification. Separately, the department may also send a notification request asking the applicant to submit geotagged photographs using AgriSnap, as part of the checks process.

Online amendments can be made to the 2025 BISS application (and other area-based scheme applications including ACRES) up to 31 May 2025 without incurring a penalty. If an applicant needs to amend an incorrectly claimed area or add a new parcel/plot to their 2025 application, this amendment must be submitted via the online system by the 31 May 2025 deadline.

Late BISS amendments (made after 31 May 2025) will be accepted online up to and including 10 June 2025, but these may incur a penalty.

Further details on how to make online amendments can be found under Section 15 of the BISS Terms and Conditions here.