The National Farmers’ Union (NFU) has met with Jim Fitzpatrick, the minister for Food, Farming and Environment, to raise concerns over the handling of the Single Payment Scheme (SPS).
NFU president Peter Kendall spoke to Fitzpatrick about a number of issues including the performance targets set for the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) for SPS 2009, those farmers still awaiting monies for 2008 SPS because of previous problems processing entitlement allocations, and ongoing issues with the current Rural Land Register remapping exercise.
Kendall said he was disappointed that, after five years of the SPS being in place, performance was still lagging behind the rest of Europe and delivery targets were not more ambitious.
He said: “The targets set for the RPA for SPS 2009 are, disappointingly, the same as they were for 2008 - to have paid 75 per cent of the value of valid SPS claims by January 31, 2010 and 90 per cent by March 31, 2010."
Kendall said he was concerned that recent changes announced by the RPA regarding the current remapping exercise were not going to solve all the problems that had been caused.
These changes included the requirement for marker posts in situations where extensive areas of arable and upland were in multiple-occupancy and the “needless” changing of field references and the impact this would have on 2010 applications.
“We are worried that there are still situations where new mapping is going to cause significant problems to farmers and growers and we urge Natural England, as a matter of urgency, to work with the RPA to allow those wishing to enter into the forthcoming Uplands Entry Level Stewardship agreements not to need marker posts, by improving the capability of the Natural England software,” said Kendall.
No comments yet