2005 - year of the farmers' Olympics (From Gazette & Herald)

2005 - year of the farmers' Olympics

THE New Year has set the stopwatch going for farmers on the countdown to the biggest test in our recent history when by May 16 we need to have completed our first applications for the Single Payment (SP).

The date is set in a tablet of stone and non compliance will be as unforgiving as was last year's marathon to poor Paula Radcliffe.

If you miss May 16, there will not be another opportunity to rerun the race; and your SP entitlement will be lost in perpetuity, unless of course you want to gamble on a change in the rules, DEFRA's well-known leniency, or being able to purchase somebody else's entitlement.

Without exception, we must all prepare for the new regime.

We would indeed be very foolish virgins if we allowed complacency to creep in and wait for the application forms to appear, which currently DEFRA is promising to deliver in March or April.

There is going to be an awful lot of pressure in the weeks leading up to May 16 and although no one yet knows what is to be in the new application forms, there are measures which can be taken in the less demanding days of January and February to ease the burden.

Rural land register maps - with consummate incompetence, the RPA has still not produced a correct set of digital maps for many of the farming fraternity and if you are one of those, then now is the time to push the RLR unit at Reading to get the boundaries of your farm correct. It is upon these areas that your claim will be based for the SP.

I find it hypocritical in the extreme that whilst DEFRA shows no mercy for our innocent transgressions, it can brazenly write to producers, such as myself, admitting that it had sent out an earlier version of maps in error and would rectify the matter in due course.

This has served as a reminder to put the record straight in time for the SP applications.

Cropping programme - most pundits believe that the new forms will have some similarity to the old IACS procedure in that we will be required to declare our cropping on a field by field basis.

Why not sit down and get this done now?

You can combine the new digital mapping areas with last year's IACS returns and come up with the date for 2005.

Tenancies and grazing licences - I believe that it would be wrong and, indeed, shameful if we fail to get registered every possible acre of farming land in the country, because registration provides the one and only platform to acquire financial support over a seven-year period which might enable our industry to survive.

There are many situations where landowners are not the farmers and, therefore, cannot claim the entitlement.

All owners and occupiers need to work together for their mutual interest and I am certain my profession is there to see fair play.

As valuers, we have been working very hard to find some of the answers to the unique tenurial problems of British agriculture; and here are a few pointers:

The traditional tenancies under the Agricultural Holdings Act 1986, or the newer long-term Farm Business Tenancies, give security to the tenant; and this most likely means that the tenant farmer is the only person who will be eligible to claim SP.

The parties need to get together to ensure a claim is properly made and address any other provisions that need to be changed in the current terms of the Agreement.

There will be shorter-term FBTs which terminate before the seven-year run-off period for the historic element and some farmers in this situation may be tempted not to claim, preferring to stack their entitlements on their own more secure land.

Please avoid this at all costs as there are simple ways of providing comfort for the farmer so that he doesn't lose out.

We are now coming up to the time of year when seasonal grazing is let and owners need to consider whether they want the grazing occupier to make the SP claim or whether they wish to do so themselves and create a licence for agustment of stock or a sale of pasturage agreement.

We now have model agreements to cover these situations.

But enough of the tedium of the Mid-Term Review - my message is to put on the cloak of St John the Baptist and prepare ye the way!

I spotted an announcement from Brussels that farm incomes in the EU were up by 50 per cent last year and presumed that my miserable returns were due to exceptional incompetence, until I read the small print.

The leap in good fortune only applies to the 10 member states that joined the union in May, whereas the old group of 15 countries has a more depressing 0.8 per cent rise in income, which doesn't even keep pace with inflation. Poland has led the new boys' charge with their farmers' incomes lifting by 74 per cent; although this has ironically triggered a rise in the value of their currency which may dampen their export enthusiasm in the coming year.

Don't laugh but EU agriculture ministers have agreed to cut red tape.

It may be a tasteless joke but the initiative to reduce red tape has been triggered by the Dutch Presidency and before Christmas, member states submitted 74 separate suggestions for cutting bureaucracy. I noted with a wry smile the report went on to say that little progress was made! Most of us believe that too many directives come out of Brussels; and even this surfeit is multiplied many times by our gold-plating Civil Service.

I can't help thinking that the new dawn of the Single Farm Payment was meant to simplify our farming lives, whereas the reality looks like being ever more complex regulation with the cross compliance rules.

Forward were 40 cattle, 1,001 sheep including 236 ewes. Heavy steers to 111p, C Beal Yedingham, average 99.5p; medium heifers to 136p, G I Marwood, Harome, average 121.2p; heavy heifers to 144p, G I Marwood, average 117.2p; light bulls to 105p, T D Nicholls, Stape. Heavy bulls to 124p, T D Nicholls, average 99.5p; black and white bulls to 83p, N P Turnbull, Riseborough, average 77.3p; standard hoggs to 106.7p, G Belt, Normanby, average 101.2p; medium hoggs to 117.8p, D Fussey, Bridlington, average 104.8p; heavy hoggs to 107.4p, J Jacklin, Yatts, average 101.2p; overweight hoggs to 101.8p, J Marwood, Settrington, average 96.01p; ewes to £58.50, J Jacklin, Yatts, average £34.60.

Updated: 12:25 Wednesday, January 05, 2005