Junior DEFRA minister Lord Rooker has dashed industry hopes that an 80% advance could be made on 2007 single farm payments to ease cash flow problems caused by livestock movement restrictions.
The Tenant Farmers Association , Country Land and Business Association and National Farmers Union have issued a joint statement follwing a meeting with Lord Rooker on Wednesday (17 October).
"Against a background of hardship caused by the summer floods and animal disease outbreaks, TFA National Chairman Reg Haydon, CLA President David Fursdon and NFU President Peter Kendall met DEFRA Minister Jeff Rooker today to repeat strongly their request for an 80% part payment of the Single Farm Payment (SFP) in December.
"They were extremely disappointed to hear that there were no plans to do this. Jeff Rooker re-iterated that the Rural Payment Agency’s target was to make only full SFP payments and to have completed 75% of the total by the end of March 2008.
"He said he could not and would not go further than to say that more farmers would be paid more money, earlier, than was the case in 2007."
The three industry leaders said that they recognised that the RPA and DEFRA have made some progress.
But their members would be hugely frustrated to learn that payments to all farmers could not be made earlier given the enormous cash flow problems that many sectors are now facing.
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