NFU conference 2013: Farmers verdict on red tape
Recommendations designed to cut regulatory burden for farmers have had little or no reduction in red tape since they were implemented a year ago, according to a progress report released today.
Farmers Weekly asked delegates at the NFU conference which bit of red tape most tied up their business. Our straw poll of farmers revealed a wide range of areas that held them up.
For Ben Wharfe, a mixed farmer fromCheshire, it was the planning process. “I think that local planning authorities are too slow in adopting the full implications of the National Planning Policy Framework, and still have long lists of local list requirements that place an unnecessary burden on what should be straightforward applications.” | |
James Smith, a top fruit farmer from Kent’s bugbear was the sheer volume of form filling. “The whole farm approach is hellish difficult to get on with,” he said, as was the Producer Organisation Scheme. | |
Gregg Bliss, from East Anglia, said that he was a big arable farmer and a small sheep farmer, andfelt the fines for EID tag loss didn’t fit the crime. He said that with no percentage cap on penalties, “a few missing tags are missing and I can lose hundreds of acres of single farm payment.” | |
Ian Stancer, an arable farmer from Lincolnshire said that filling in the Single Payment Scheme form every year was frustrating: “We have to answer the same questions every year, but a lot hasn’t changed since the year before.” |
For more on this topic
News from the NFU conference 2013