Entitlement statements about to start rolling out (From Gazette & Herald)

Entitlement statements about to start rolling out

THE practical meaning of "definitive establishment" has become just about as elusive as the legendary Scarlet Pimpernel, and we still cannot be certain what will be in the Defra statement when the postman finally delivers it over the coming weeks.

I set out below a few drops of the past week's leaks out of Whitehall which may help you understand what we are about to receive:

Entitlement statements should start to arrive this week and be completed around the end of the month.

Entitlement statements will list the types, numbers and payment values in Euros. They will not tell you about your Dairy Premium and you should retain your quota statements from March 31, 2005, as evidence. In addition, sugar beet farmers should also hang onto all contract documentation.

I am given to understand that more than 50 per cent of the entitlement statements will not be validated and no payment will be made until this happens. Non-validation is most likely to arise from questions about "customer status" or the land itself. There is still likely to be a significant number of farmers not fully validated by the end of March and the Government's commitment is simply to pay "the bulk" of farmers.

Some 600 claimants are going to be told that their SP5 application arrived too late or that they are going to incur greater penalties. This will actually be done without any prior warning.

The RPA has indicated the area rates for each English region as follows: non SDA land remains at £77.83 per acre; SDA land outside Moorland has increased to £65.10 per acre; SDA Moorland has reduced to £9.27 per acre. There is, however, a discrepancy of several pounds per acre between the figures used for National Reserve Awards and the above table. The RPA appears to have no plans to correct this.

The rules regarding transfers become a little clearer as we get into them. You do need to order more forms than you thought and at a minimum you will need the following: transferer needs to send in the form notifying that the entitlements have been moved and transferee needs to send a similar form along with his SP application in May. The message seems to be that you want to order at least two or three times the number of forms per transfer and you are strongly advised to get on with it to avoid the bottleneck.

An interesting question was put at one of our valuers' meetings as to whether a farmer can surrender his Set Aside Entitlements and thus get out of leaving Set Aside on his land. The RPA does not share this view believing that the regulations do not give a general right to surrender. I am sure this will be tested shortly. In the fullness of time, all will be revealed, or will it?

I may be an old cynic but increasingly one finds that gentle persuasion and reasoned argument cannot deter the big boys such as Tesco or the Government from pursuing a particular policy that they perceive as being in their interest.

The proposals of Defra to introduce pre- movement testing were described by an auctioneer colleague as "impractical, ill-conceived and fatally flawed".

Despite this justifiable criticism from the section of industry that has to implement the regulations, Defra did not take a blind bit of notice until the Livestock Auctioneers' Association combined with the NFU to apply for a judiciary review against Defra's order.

On Monday, the Government backed down and Ben Bradshaw announced a postponement of pre-movement testing until the end of March to allow time for more consultation. We have therefore five weeks to try and make some sense of this nonsense.

In response to my column last week, I got the full treatment from the Badger Trust receiving their campaign leaflet asking me to "act now to stop the killing of badgers".

Isn't it strange that BT (Badger Trust) and TB are a two-letter anagram for each other, if that is possible?

The BT believes that killing badgers can never be part of a viable strategy for controlling TB in cattle and claim the support of scientific research.

It is true that scientific trials have shown that culling on too small a scale can result in the infected badger population moving to the fringe of the culling area and thus increasing the incidence of TB. Scientists have, however, quite clearly said that if culling were to be conducted over very large areas extending to 300 sq km or more, then this would have an overall positive impact on TB in cattle.

We need to look at the facts:

Badgers are a protected species and as such their population has exploded in the past decade.

I know that on our own farm we have many more badger sets than we used to but coincidentally no hedgehogs which have been preyed upon by the old brock.

Some but not all badger populations are infected with bovine TB and it has been proved that they pass it onto cattle.

The protection of badgers and their population explosion has coincided with a gradual but escalating TB epidemic in cattle. For example, in 1996 the Government spent £17 million on TB and by last year this had risen to more than £90 million.

The Badger Trust points out that 30,000 badgers have been culled officially since 1975 without any positive effect on cattle TB, but this would be expected from localised culling which encourages further infection. We need to balance that 30-year badger statistic against the 30,000 cattle that were killed last year alone and the prospect of even more in the future.

The BT suggests that pre-movement testing and better control of cattle movements will resolve the problem but this is a nonsense, as neither strike at the root cause of bovine TB which will still be endemic in the badger population.

It should never be forgotten that badgers with TB cannot be treated in the wild and die a pretty miserable death.

Although I love to see badgers about and have a great respect for organisations like the Badger Trust, there can be no justification for putting at risk the whole of our beef industry.

Finally, culling badgers doesn't mean the end of the brock population in Britain. At worst, the large culling areas are only just over 10 miles square and don't forget at present we have no TB in our Yorkshire badgers so why don't we protect them?

If you have a viewpoint you would like to present to Defra, you can do so by e-mail to: btB.consultations@defra.gsi.gov.uk.

As the dreadful prospect of bird flu seems to fly ever closer I did wonder about the advisability of carrying out the tests on suspected flu carcases in British laboratories which I understand is happening in the south-east of England. The knee-jerk reaction of the market place to any outbreak is quite dramatic.

When six swans were found dead in southern Italy last weekend, Italian poultry sales plunged by more than 50 per cent. We need to keep the disease out if at all possible.

It is interesting that the All-Party Parliamentary Small Shops Group has concluded what we all know to be the situation, namely that the big boys in retail marketing have an agenda to steamroller competition out of the high street.

In its latest report, the parliamentary group has suggested that there should be a regulator of the retail sector who can control aggression of large companies which distort the supply chain. The group went on to say that there should be a moratorium on any further mergers between the big boys and that there should be a full investigation of the grocery sector. Let us hope somebody listens.

Forward 143 cattle including 43 bulls and 13 cows. 942 sheep including 209 ewes. Light steers to 114p Charity Farms, Thornton-le-Dale heavy steers to 141p J L Gray, Grindale, ave 102.5p; light heifers to 130p Mrs M C Towse, Welham, ave 106.7p; heavy heifers to 147p G I Marwood, ave 106.6p; light bulls to 115p D Kirby, Ebberston, heavy bulls to 124p J & A M Craggs, Ebberston, ave 102.3p; cows to 68p J Gill, Edstone, ave 47.8p; light hoggs to 102p M A Hammond, Ebberston, Common standard hoggs to 115.7p, C Southwell, Burton Fleming, ave 99.9p; heavy hoggs to 122.5p H W Ward & Sons, Kirby O Carr, ave 103.1p; heavy hoggs to 108.6p T Midgley & Sons, Painsthorpe, ave 97.8p; overweight hoggs to 95.3p P Raines & Son, Stonegrave, ave 92.4p; ewes to £42 A N Burgess, Muston, ave £34.

Updated: 15:49 Wednesday, February 22, 2006