Single Farm Payment claims

Every year the information required, codes and layout of single farm payment claim forms changes, says Mark Juniper, a partner at Strutt & Parker.

“There is no consistency and it is difficult to identify what has changed year-on-year. It means growers have to read through the entire 120-odd page handbook to understand how to fill in the forms every year, which at least doubles the time it takes to fill out the form.”

While this has been good for consultants who are used to help fill out forms to try to avoid penalties, Mr Juniper says this money would be better invested in the farm business rather than spent on deciphering the over complicated literature for the scheme.

Some changes that have been made to forms in recent years have helped simplify the process, he admits. “This year the 6m Entry Level Stewardship buffer strips and field corners can now be put under the same code as the field. But growers had invested time in past years in excluding the strips and setting up fields with different crop codes.”

Online claims are also a step in the right direction, except you can’t correct map issues online. “Claims made online may also require the submission of a paper form to correct field number and area changes where the RLR is incorrect.”

Maps

Maps have proved to be a bureaucratic nightmare in recent years, and is a typical example of where government departments fail to share information to ease the red tape burden.

For example, DEFRA uses Rural Land Registry maps for its SFP claims, while Natural England uses Genesis for Environmental Stewardship, and they are not compatible with each other.

Not only that both have been beset with errors. Maps for ELS renewals this summer are frequently wrong, according to Mr Juniper, while the endless tweaking of RLR maps results in only minor adjustments to field areas and numbers. “That must be costly to administer. We should be using a single mapping system, which should be available online to growers to assist in making changes and completion of claim forms.”

Soil Protection Reviews

About 10% of farmers have reportedly been found in breach of cross-compliance rules by not having their soil protection reviews ready for inspection. The breach results in an automatic 5% fine from SFP cheques.

Although not particularly time costly to complete, Mr Juniper refers to the soil protection review as “a complete waste of time”. “Farmers greatest resource is the soil, and they know they must look after their soils to have efficient and viable businesses. It is just a form-filling exercise that are rarely looked at, other than during an inspection.”

Waste transfer licences

Waste transfer licences are required for moving empty seed and fertiliser bags or pesticide containers, even between holdings on the same unit, Mr Juniper says. “But the industry has changed with farm sizes getting larger, so these requirements should be scrapped, or minimum limits introduced so growers can legally move waste between holdings without needing a licence.”

Nitrate Vulnerable Zones

The Nitrates Directive is based on an arbitrary limit for maximum level of nitrate in water set by the EU. The amount of N growers can use is limited by the directive via RB209, and in some cases restricts yields, says Mr Juniper.

“I’d like to see that regulation scrapped and all fertiliser recommendations made on a crop requirement based on soil type, weather and crop needs, for example, by a trained adviser.

“Nowadays no grower puts fertiliser on a crop unless they are going to see a yield response; they can’t afford to.”

Paperwork could also be reduced. Currently growers have to do a fertiliser plan at the beginning of the year, and then fill in more paperwork at the end of the season to record what they have actually done.

“A trained adviser system could do away with all that paperwork.”

Transport legislation

Current Department for Transport regulation of agricultural vehicles, which has been in place since 1985, does not accurately reflect the higher capacity machinery larger farms now use, according to the NFU.

This is leading to difficulty in two main areas – farmers are using machines that could be driven quicker or loaded more heavily than the current law allows, and in the classification of agricultural trailers dedicated to moving specific implements.

Certain machinery used for this purpose are too heavy to be classed under legislation as unbraked agricultural trailed appliances, and should technically be classed as trailers, the NFU’s Guy Gagen explains. “At this point they have inadequate brakes under current legislation, and can exceed the maximum length of 12m.”

Manufacturers are working with the DfT to draw up an accepted practice document, but the NFU believes this can only be a stop-gap and the legislation should be changed to put farmers on a more firm legal footing.

“The problem is we are using machinery designed to modern EU standards, but under domestic legislation last revised in the mid-1980s. This leaves us less competitive compared with other countries, as to stay within legal limits we have to use our machines at lower capacity than they were designed, or fit additional devices, such as a higher standard of brakes to trailers, which pushes up costs.”

Groundwater regulations

It costs growers about £150 a year to maintain an authorisation to dispose spray tank washings onto agricultural land. “The anomaly is no authorisation is required for use of the product on the crop, which is assessed in the product approval process, yet disposal onto soil of spray washings that are more dilute is deemed to require regulation,” says Mr Gagen.

He suggests disposal of washings in specified ways could be considered in the product approval, so growers could dispose of washings without the need for individual authorisation.

One problem with that approach could be that it takes no account of site-specific groundwater vulnerability, so a system might need to be introduced to relate that to acceptable methods of disposal, he admits.

Notification of radioactive sources

The NFU says about 250 authorisations for combines that have yield flow meters containing low level radioactive sources. The current annual Environment Agency fee is £300.

That is a substantial sum, when, in addition, to EA inspections, checks are carried out on the sealed source annually by the machinery dealer and by the Health and Safety Executive, Mr Gagen points out.

“Cost savings could be made for agriculture if a more integrated approach to information sharing, inspections and enforcement were to be adopted by HSE and EA,” he says.