Thousands of farmers are still waiting on a payment for their participation in the first year of the Knowledge Transfer (KT) programme.

Payments were issued to facilitators for 4,034 KT participants on 28 March. However, no additional payments have been issued since that date and 3,440 farmers have yet to be paid.

Money owed to farmers who took part in the scheme add up to over €2.5m.

The Department has said that approximately 1,000 of these 3,440 farmers have not completed all the necessary actions under the scheme.

In order to be eligible for a payment each KT participant must attend eight group meetings as well as a one-to-one meeting with their KT facilitator each year of the three-year programme.

The Department has said that facilitators have been contacted in recent weeks to provide evidence of one-to-one meetings which they said may clear some of these cases for payment.

Included in those remaining to be paid are cases still subject to administrative checks, KT groups that were subject to on-the-spot inspections, and KT participants that do not have a valid BISS application for 2024.

KT groups and meetings that had changes throughout the year that require IT intervention and KT participants who have not completed a one-to-one meeting or did not attend eight group meetings have also not been paid.

June payments

Payments to farmers in the scheme who are due a pro-rata payment, or for whom evidence is still outstanding, will commence early June 2025, the Department confirmed.

It is an EU regulatory requirement that the payment for farmers in KT groups must be paid to farmers via the facilitator of their KT group.

Where a farmer has met all the requirements of year one of the programme, the payment is €750.