November decision for 2006 SFP advances

English farmers won’t find out until November whether they will get an advance on their 2006 single farm payments.

Addressing an NFU fringe meeting at the Labour Party conference in Manchester this week, DEFRA secretary David Miliband said he was still awaiting a report from the Rural Payments Agency before he could make a decision.

His preferred option would be to pay all the SFP in one go, during the normal payment window (December to June). A decision would be made “in the first two weeks of November” on whether this was possible.

NFU president Peter Kendall stressed the need to manage farmers’ expectations, and pointed out that some member states would be issuing up to 50% of their SFPs even earlier, following last week’s EU decision to allow the monies to go out from 16 October due to the summer drought.

Mr Miliband once again apologised for the problems farmers had faced this year, saying it had damaged their trust in both the RPA and DEFRA.

“I cannot be a partner of yours if I cannot pay your money on time,” he said. But he added that 2006/07 would “also be a challenging year”.

The DEFRA secretary reiterated government’s willingness to reward farmers for the provision of public goods. Agriculture had a huge contribution to make, he said.

By developing local sourcing, it could help reduce the carbon emissions involved with modern food distribution. In this respect, he applauded the Farmers Weekly Food Miles campaign.