1000 farmers paid single farm payment after Rural Payments Agency runs test

One thousandEngland have received their full 2007 single farm payment, following live testing of its systems by the Rural Payments Agency.

The total amount of money that has been distributed is £8m and it has been paid to a mix of people – some are claimants who applied to be paid in sterling and others are farmers who asked to be paid in euros.

An RPA spokesman said that the objective had been to test the process to make sure that at every step things were working properly.

It was not possible to predict when the bulk of payments would start, he added. There would be more testing, but so far things had gone “smoothly”.

The RPA claims to be working towards making more full payments to more farmers earlier than last year, with a view to meeting its formal targets of making 75% of full payments, by value, by the end of March and 90% by end of May 2008.

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