DUE to a shortage of space in the Gazette & Herald, last week’s piece in my column relating to the Single Payment forms that are coming out with the 2010 application was cut.

By now most of you will have received the new SP 5 forms so here are the points I made again – including the ones which were omitted.

* The deadline date is May 17 and, therefore, in order to claim the Single Payment you must prove that the land is at your disposal on May 17.

* The updating of the Rural Land Register maps has in many cases been a disaster; and we have found that the revised maps are littered with errors.

* This will have a knock on effect with the pre-populated claim forms so please check your forms carefully as it is more than likely that there will be incorrect data.

* There is now a new column for “Maximum Area Eligible for SPS (ha)”. We are informed that if any further changes need to be made to this column then an RLE 1 form should be submitted to the RPA explaining the changes.

* The 2003 Land Use code column has been removed.

* There are some new Land Use codes the main use code being PC2 for land used as permanent crops.

* The minimum claim size is 1 ha.

* The usage rules for entitlements has been reduced from once in every three years to once in every two years. This means that if you do not activate your entitlements every two years then they will be lost to the National Reserve.

Therefore entitlements that have not been used since 2008 must be activated for this current scheme year if you do not want to lose them.

It is therefore important to complete an SP 11 form to declare the order in which you want your entitlements activated. If a form is not completed the RPA will activate the highest value entitlements first rather than the use by date.

I think the RPA’s Utopian dream of getting all ineligible features permanently onto your application forms is not achievable but we will have to tread carefully for the time being.

I can only advise that you check every single figure and seek help from the professionals who are dealing with these forms every day. I see that our small mountain of envelopes is building swiftly on the boardroom table.

Does the RPA make mistakes?

SOME of my lay readers may well think I am too hard on the Rural Payments Agency but, to be honest, most of their systems are ill-conceived and have all the ingredients for self-destruction.

For our part as farmers, we have to struggle with over complicated regulations, faceless civil servants and misinformation.

This is a true story about a client who has a block of 100 acres of land on which he has claimed Single Payment.

The 2008 entitlement statement showed a unit value of £81 per acre but this was amended on the claim statement to show a unit value of £41 per acre.

The next year in 2009 the statement produced yet another different figure of £224 per acre and when this was queried with the RPA they wrote “After careful consideration we have determined that the correct value should be £423 per acre”.

When the 2009 claim statement arrived it had changed yet again to £102 per acre.

The correct figure was, in fact, the first one quoted in 2008. We and the farmer had to spend unrewarded time and stress trying to sort the matter out.

Fight for control

I DON’T fully understand the implications of the current boardroom battle between the fertiliser producers but it looks from the sidelines as though we are going to end up with even less competition than ever.

Terra Industries, who control Grow How UK, are the quarry and the two chasing hounds are Yara and C F Industries, which latter company is based in the USA. The latest state of play this week is that Yara’s bid has been exceeded by C F Industries and Yara have at least publicly backed off for the time being.

Spelling test

ON Monday night I went for a special supper with my father’s sister, Auntie Mary, who is in her 96th year and she entertained us with some lovely stories from almost a century ago.

In those days we lived just west of York and our family was friendly with the Weddalls, who farmed near Bolton Percy. Auntie Mary said that William Weddall had a large moustache and a huge voice. When he “bealed” for his cattle they could hear him in Ulleskelf. Does anyone know how to spell “bealed”?

Market report

FORWARD 70 cattle, including seven bulls, 15 cows and OTMs, 2,015 sheep, including three spring lambs and 430 ewes.

Medium steers to 162p A H Tyson (Snainton), Heavy steers to 167p (1431.58p) P Raines and Son (Stonegrave) ave 149.5p, Medium heifers to 179p J & R Waind (Brawby), Heavy heifers to 206p 1182.95p G I Marwood (Harome) ave 162.19p, Medium bulls to 146p M R Fargher (Bulmer), Heavy bulls to 162p OTM steers 145p A L Bosomworth (Thornton-le-Dale), Cows to 107p T & D M Bell and Sons (Normanby) ave 91p, S P Mason (Butterwick) ave 156.8p, Medium lambs to 231p Mrs P Harrison, Standard hoggs to 199p W H Curtis (Kirkbymoorside) ave 187.4p, Medium hoggets to 198p C Southwell (Burton Fleming) ave 186.2p, Heavy hoggets to 186p J A Cussons Ltd (Heslerton) ave 171.2p, O/W hoggs 169p C F Beal (Yedingham) ave 157.7p, Ewes to 117p E W Jackson (North Dale) ave £79.20.