I MIGHT just get a sandwich board painted to parade around the auction markets, emblazoned on one side “Eternal Damnation is Nigh” and on the other “Beware of the RPA Forms”.

As I write this column, it is eight weeks to the day for your claim submission deadline; and as Armageddon approaches, it is clear we have to proceed with great urgency, but also great care.

The past weeks’ revelations include:

• A new 51-page booklet entitled "How to apply for 2015 Basic Payment" is available online. It makes my point when, after 10 years of completing SPS forms, it takes 51 pages to explain how to fill in the new BPS forms, which were held out to be “a simplification”. Defra’s dictionary must be different to the Oxford version, which defines simple as being “not complicated or elaborate or involved or highly developed or sophisticated” – enough said. Nevertheless you would be well-advised to read the booklet, if only to be aware of the pitfalls.

• I told you last week the RPA had chosen 39,000 farmers as having straightforward claims that could be returned to them online, merely by ticking the OK box. As the pre-populated forms have come out, mistakes have been found. Don’t be tempted to assume the RPA has got it right and you should certainly download the form to check it.

• One of the worst features of BPS is the insistence that you must return data on the complete holding. Under the old scheme you could, and many of us did, err on the cautious side by slightly underestimating the areas claimed, but this no longer applies. The new rules are that every field must show its full area and accurate measurements for each component part, eg., different crops, temporary and permanent ineligible features. The RPA will not accept the information merely being recorded on the claim and you have to complete an RLE1 form for every change. This is a painful, time-consuming operation with little purpose.

• For environmental schemes such as ELS and HLS, there is a new annual claim form and the deadline has also been extended to June 15, but the message hasn’t got to Natural England, who are calling farmers to tell them the deadline is May 15. This is not true.

• Another minor issue is that the pre-populated forms have only been scanned in by the RPA for the purposes of keeping a record on each farmer's file and you cannot actually make alterations to your claim online. The consequence is that once the forms are received in June, all your data is going to have to be manually entered into the core Siti Farmer programme. Such a laborious procedure can only make our chances of receiving payment on time that much slimmer.

That’s all for this week on BPS – enjoy the sunshine while it lasts.

 

Tories and UKIP back the cull

Sadly the Labour Party’s manifesto pledges to stop the badger cull trials forthwith – and the Liberal Democrats have sat in their usual place on the fence. This leaves UKIP and the Tories supporting the cull, which is essential if we are to prevent the slaughter of 30,000 infected cattle every year.

Last week, Defra published its latest statistics to show that there was a marginal decline in bovine TB last year with an incidence rate in 2014 of 4.2 per cent, compared to 4.5 per cent the previous year. However, 32,851 animals were slaughtered as reactors or direct contacts, which is some 200 more than 2013.

I keep quoting Australia and New Zealand as examples of wildlife population control to assist disease, but nearer home the Irish have had official badger culling in place for more than 10 years and their incidence rate has halved in the period.

We desperately need to roll out the policy across the whole country but for some reason are finding it difficult to win the argument with our urban brethren. We have no wish to slaughter badgers indiscriminately but every cow lost represents a precious animal to a farmer. Without being flippant, consider your pet dog’s life being threatened by a transmittable disease in a rat. Would you hesitate putting down traps or poison to get rid of the rat?