The long-awaited landscape actions in the Agri-Climate Rural Environment Scheme (ACRES) have been unveiled following the opening of applications by Minister for Agriculture Martin Heydon.

The landscape actions are available to farmers participating in the co-operation (CP) element of ACRES and have been allocated a €50m budget over the next three years.

In announcing its opening, Minister Heydon stated that landscape actions will “benefit the local environment, while also contributing to improving the quality and score of participant’s lands in the coming years, leading to an increased results-based core payment for the participants themselves”.

While the application window opened on 18 July 2025, farmers will need to await the conclusion of the public consultation period before decisions on approving these can be made.

The landscape actions listed in Table 1 to Table 5 (see end of story) will also remain as draft actions until the public consultation period has passed.

Larger scale

The Department explains “as landscape actions are larger scale complementary environmental actions compared to the non-productive investments (NPIs), the ACRES co-operation project (CP) teams will play a key role through their direct engagement with ACRES co-operation participants, in the efficient and effective targeting of landscape actions at landscape level in their respective ACRES co-operation zones to address biodiversity restoration and water quality improvement as per the local action plans”.

The Minister added that during the consultation phase, ACRES CP teams can “engage with the ACRES farmers in their areas and prepare applications in the form of a landscape action annual works plan”.

A list of the draft landscape actions is detailed below.