# Cross-Check Your BPS History Against Your LPIS Maps with Free Tools — Before Your BISS Closes *Published 2026-04-22 by FarmAI Ireland* Your BPS payment history and your current LPIS parcel maps are both free on agfood.ie. If they don't match — and on a lot of farms they don't — you may be leaving money on the table every year. An AI assistant can compare the two lists in under 10 minutes and flag every parcel worth querying. --- The BISS submission window doesn't stay open long. Every spring, the same thing happens on farms across the country: someone pulls up their parcels on [agfood.ie](https://agfood.ie), notices something looks different from last year, and can't figure out why. A field that was 3.8 hectares eligible in 2021 is now showing 3.3 hectares. An entitlement that should be there isn't. A parcel number that used to appear has gone. These changes don't always come with a letter. They don't always come with an explanation. And the process of tracking what changed, when, and whether it was right — without help — takes hours you don't have in April. An AI assistant won't tell you whether a DAFM decision was correct. That's a job for your Teagasc advisor. What it will do is cut the cross-referencing work from 3 hours to 30 minutes, and hand you a clear list of the specific parcels worth querying before the deadline closes. --- ## What is LPIS and why does it matter? LPIS stands for Land Parcel Identification System. In plain English, it's the official digital map of every field registered for direct payments in Ireland. Every parcel has a reference number, a satellite-derived boundary, and an eligible area — the portion DAFM will pay on. That eligible area excludes buildings, water, roads, scrub, and land that doesn't meet EU agricultural definitions. Your BISS payment is calculated from your entitlements, which are matched against your LPIS eligible area. Get the eligible area wrong and every scheme you touch is affected — BISS, ACRES, ANC. [DAFM](https://www.gov.ie/en/organisation/department-of-agriculture-food-and-the-marine/) manages over a million registered land parcels nationally. The maps are updated regularly through satellite review, ground inspections, and farmer submissions. The critical point: your BPS payment history (what you were paid in 2019–2022) and your current LPIS maps (what DAFM holds right now) are two different records. They're not automatically in sync. Parcels can change between those two snapshots — and not every change gets flagged to you in writing. --- ## Why do BPS history and LPIS maps diverge? There are four common reasons your historical payment and your current parcel area don't match: **1. Land eligibility inspections.** DAFM selects farms for ground inspections each year. If an inspector found scrub, rushes, or water on a parcel, the eligible area may have been reduced. You should have received a correspondence, but not everyone chases it up. **2. Satellite review updates.** DAFM uses satellite imagery to monitor land use across all registered parcels. If imagery flagged ineligible features on your land, the map may have been updated without a formal inspection. **3. Boundary corrections.** When you took on land through purchase or lease, new parcels may have been added with boundary lines drawn from satellite data rather than your fencing. These can be narrower than your actual agricultural boundary. **4. Historic reference years.** BISS entitlements carried over from BPS, which used 2013–2015 as reference years for most farmers. If parcels changed significantly since that period, the entitlement value and the current LPIS area may be telling different stories. A parcel that lost 0.8 hectares of eligible area between 2020 and 2023 represents roughly €100–€200/year in lost BISS payment, depending on entitlement value. Over 3 years that's €300–€600 per parcel. On a farm with 5 affected parcels, it adds up. --- ## How to do the cross-check — step by step ### Step 1: Download your BPS payment history from agfood.ie Log in to [agfood.ie](https://agfood.ie) using your MyGovID. If you haven't set up MyGovID, do that first at [mygovid.ie](https://www.mygovid.ie) — it's the same login used for Revenue, welfare, and most government services. Once you're in: 1. Go to **My Scheme Applications** 2. Select **Basic Payment Scheme** 3. Open your applications for 2020, 2021, and 2022 — the most useful comparison years 4. For each year, note down: the parcel reference number, the area you claimed, and the eligible area accepted by DAFM The gap between what you claimed and what was accepted is the starting point. Any parcel where DAFM accepted less than you declared is worth looking at. ### Step 2: View your current LPIS parcel maps Still in agfood.ie: 1. Go to the **Land Parcel Viewer** section 2. Your current registered parcels will appear on the map 3. Click each parcel to see the reference number and eligible area 4. Record the current eligible area for each parcel For a broader view without logging in, [DAFM's open data portal](https://opendata.agriculture.gov.ie) publishes national LPIS datasets under a CC-BY-4.0 licence. ### Step 3: Use AI to compare the two lists This is where you save the most time. You have two lists of parcel data — historical and current. An AI assistant can compare them methodically in a fraction of the time it takes to do it by hand. Copy your BPS parcel data from agfood.ie — parcel numbers, areas claimed, areas accepted per year. Then copy your current LPIS parcel areas from the map viewer. Paste both into your AI assistant and use a prompt like this: > "I have two lists of land parcel data. The first is my BPS payment history from 2020–2022, showing the eligible area accepted by DAFM each year. The second is my current LPIS parcel areas from agfood.ie. For each parcel reference number that appears in both lists, compare the current eligible area against the average accepted area in 2020–2022. Flag any parcel where the current area is more than 0.3 hectares smaller than the 2020–2022 average. List them in order of biggest discrepancy." The AI will work through both lists and give you a ranked summary of the parcels worth investigating. On a farm with 15–20 parcels, this cuts the comparison work from 2–3 hours to under 30 minutes. ### Step 4: Check for missing parcels Beyond area discrepancies, look for parcels that appear in your BPS history but not in your current LPIS view. Ask the AI: > "Which parcel reference numbers appear in my BPS history but are not in my current parcel list? List them." A parcel that has vanished entirely is worth querying, particularly if you're still farming that land. ### Step 5: Prioritise and flag before the deadline The AI's output is a prioritised list. Parcels with the largest discrepancies go first. Take that list to your Teagasc advisor before the BISS window closes. They can tell you whether a change was correct, whether it's worth querying with DAFM, and what evidence you'd need to make the case. --- ## What does this cost? Everything in this process is free. | Resource | Cost | |----------|------| | agfood.ie | Free with MyGovID | | MyGovID | Free | | DAFM open data | Free (CC-BY-4.0) | | AI assistant | Free (most tools have a free tier) | | Your time | ~30–45 minutes with AI versus 2–3 hours without | --- ## What AI can and cannot do here **Where AI helps:** - Comparing two sets of numbers and flagging discrepancies - Summarising your payment trend across multiple years - Drafting a clear query letter to DAFM with specific parcel references and figures - Explaining LPIS terminology in plain English **Where AI cannot help:** - Telling you whether a DAFM decision was correct — that requires human expertise - Accessing agfood.ie on your behalf — you download the data and paste it in - Knowing whether a parcel change was triggered by an inspection, a satellite update, or an error — you need the DAFM correspondence for that - Submitting a query or appeal to DAFM — that goes through agfood.ie, by post, or through your advisor The AI is working with the data you give it. If the figures you paste in are incomplete or transcribed incorrectly, the output will be wrong. Check the source data first. --- ## Frequently asked questions **How do I know if a parcel boundary changed because of an inspection versus a satellite update?** You should have received a written correspondence from DAFM any time an inspection resulted in a change. If you can't find it, contact DAFM directly and ask for the record of what triggered the parcel update. Your Teagasc advisor can help you interpret the response and advise on whether there are grounds to contest it. **Can AI help me write a query to DAFM about a parcel discrepancy?** Yes. Once you've identified a specific parcel with a clear discrepancy, describe the issue to your AI assistant and ask it to draft a factual letter setting out the parcel reference, the historical eligible area, the current area, and the basis for your query. Keep it factual — dates, reference numbers, and areas. You review it, adjust it, and send it yourself through the proper channels. **What if I find a parcel that's no longer in my LPIS list at all?** Query it. If you're still farming that land and it has dropped off your LPIS register, there may be a registration error. Your [Teagasc CAP advisor](https://www.teagasc.ie/rural-economy/farm-management/cap-supports/) is the fastest route to getting it investigated before the BISS deadline. --- ## Where to get help - **agfood.ie:** [agfood.ie](https://agfood.ie) — parcel maps, BPS history, and BISS application portal - **BISS scheme information:** [gov.ie/biss](https://www.gov.ie/en/service/43b563-basic-income-support-for-sustainability-biss/) — current scheme rules and entitlement documentation - **Teagasc CAP supports:** [teagasc.ie](https://www.teagasc.ie/rural-economy/farm-management/cap-supports/) — your advisor is the fastest route to sense-checking what you find and deciding if it's worth pursuing - **DAFM open data:** [opendata.agriculture.gov.ie](https://opendata.agriculture.gov.ie) — national LPIS datasets for reference - **Citizens Information:** [citizensinformation.ie](https://www.citizensinformation.ie) — appeals process and entitlements in plain English Also worth reading: our guide to [what AI can and cannot do for your BISS application](/read/biss-deadline-april-2026-ai-checklist), which covers the submission process itself rather than the parcel history check. ## The bottom line The data to catch these discrepancies has always been free. AI just does the comparison fast enough that it's worth doing before every submission, not just when something looks badly wrong. --- ## Sources - [agfood.ie — DAFM Online Portal](https://agfood.ie) — DAFM's online portal for scheme applications, land parcel maps, payment history, and LPIS records - [DAFM — Basic Income Support for Sustainability (BISS)](https://www.gov.ie/en/service/43b563-basic-income-support-for-sustainability-biss/) — DAFM scheme page for BISS — eligibility, application process, and entitlement documentation - [Teagasc — CAP Direct Payments](https://www.teagasc.ie/rural-economy/farm-management/cap-supports/) — Teagasc guidance on CAP payments, entitlements, and farm support schemes - [DAFM Open Data — LPIS](https://opendata.agriculture.gov.ie) — DAFM open data portal including national LPIS parcel datasets, freely available under CC-BY-4.0 - [Citizens Information — Farm Payments Appeals](https://www.citizensinformation.ie) — Plain-English guide to appeals, entitlements, and farming supports in Ireland --- *Source: [FarmAI Ireland](https://farmai.ie/read/bps-lpis-map-cross-check-ireland)*