Last Friday saw the rate at which farmers are paid the so called “Single Farm Payment” set and it will not make particularly happy reading. This is because the 2012 payment will be approximately 8% less than last year.
Single Payment, as it is more properly described, is the primary source of support farmers receive from the EU via the Common Agricultural Policy and is defined in Euros. The payments are then converted to pounds at the exchange rate prevailing at the end of September, which this year as was last Friday as 30th September was a Sunday.
The 2012 exchange rate was 79.805p per Euro which compared to 86.6665p per Euro last year, hence the unwelcome fall in income. This comes on top of a poor growing year and difficult harvest which has impacted on both arable and livestock farmers alike but it is probably the beef and sheep farmers who will feel the loss in EU support payments the most. This is because such payments still remain a vital source of income for livestock farmers, many of whom would lose money without them.
However, of perhaps more concern to most farmers is the ever increasing stringency of the Rural Payment Agency’s (RPA) farm inspections. The RPA is the body charged in England with running the Single Payment Scheme on behalf of the government and their inspectors seem to be becoming more and more exacting.
In particular their harsh interpretation of the Cross Compliance rules is becoming a matter of great concern. There are a vast number of such rules and ensuring compliance with every single one, however trivial they may seem, would be a challenging task even if one employed a full time member of staff dealing with this alone. However, the reality is that ensuring compliance with such rules is just one of the many tasks that farmers have to deal with on a day to day basis and I would suggest very few of them will ever be able to ensure 100% compliance 100% of the time.
Failures at inspections can lead to significant sums of money being withheld from and individual farmer’s Single Payment and there is little doubt in my mind that as time goes on these “fines” will become more and more significant. So farmers are advised to dust out the Cross Compliance guidance books and refresh themselves on what is required because failure to adhere to the rules may prove expensive.
James Stephen MRICS FAAV
Partner
Rural Practice Chartered Surveyor, Wells
T: 01749 683381
E: james.stephen@carterjonas.co.uk
Single Payment, as it is more properly described, is the primary source of support farmers receive from the EU via the Common Agricultural Policy and is defined in Euros. The payments are then converted to pounds at the exchange rate prevailing at the end of September, which this year as was last Friday as 30th September was a Sunday.
The 2012 exchange rate was 79.805p per Euro which compared to 86.6665p per Euro last year, hence the unwelcome fall in income. This comes on top of a poor growing year and difficult harvest which has impacted on both arable and livestock farmers alike but it is probably the beef and sheep farmers who will feel the loss in EU support payments the most. This is because such payments still remain a vital source of income for livestock farmers, many of whom would lose money without them.
However, of perhaps more concern to most farmers is the ever increasing stringency of the Rural Payment Agency’s (RPA) farm inspections. The RPA is the body charged in England with running the Single Payment Scheme on behalf of the government and their inspectors seem to be becoming more and more exacting.
In particular their harsh interpretation of the Cross Compliance rules is becoming a matter of great concern. There are a vast number of such rules and ensuring compliance with every single one, however trivial they may seem, would be a challenging task even if one employed a full time member of staff dealing with this alone. However, the reality is that ensuring compliance with such rules is just one of the many tasks that farmers have to deal with on a day to day basis and I would suggest very few of them will ever be able to ensure 100% compliance 100% of the time.
Failures at inspections can lead to significant sums of money being withheld from and individual farmer’s Single Payment and there is little doubt in my mind that as time goes on these “fines” will become more and more significant. So farmers are advised to dust out the Cross Compliance guidance books and refresh themselves on what is required because failure to adhere to the rules may prove expensive.
James Stephen MRICS FAAV
Partner
Rural Practice Chartered Surveyor, Wells
T: 01749 683381
E: james.stephen@carterjonas.co.uk
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