Minister for Agriculture; Food and the Marine statement on Incentives for Farmers to Upgrade their Machinery

The Minister States:

The Targeted Agricultural Modernisation Scheme (TAMS 3) provides grants to farmers to build and/or improve a specified range of farm buildings and equipment on their holdings. Overall, the scheme has proved very popular, with an unprecedented level of applications received.

The Farm Safety Capital Investment Scheme is a measure in TAMS 3, which provides an incentive to farmers to avail of investments to improve their own safety and that of their farm. This scheme includes a number of investment items such as livestock pens and animal handling equipment, all of which contribute to improved safety on the farm. However, due to budgetary constraints, it is not possible to extend the scheme to include support for tractors.

TAMS 3 also provides support for a range of new machinery in the Low Emissions Slurry Spreading (LESS) Scheme, while machinery including cultivators, sprayers and fertiliser spreaders are available under other TAMS 3 schemes.

Farm safety is of paramount importance. I would urge farmers to ensure their machines are at all times in a safe operating condition.