Cross-compliance penalties hit 20% of sheep farmers
More than a fifth of sheep and goat farmers who have been inspected by DEFRA have suffered single payment deductions for cross-compliance failures.
Of 977 inspections in England over the past year, amounting to 5% of the sheep flock, 205 farmers were found to be in breach of cross-compliance requirements.
The vast majority were paperwork errors, following changes to movement recording regulations.
“A lot of the time people are acting in good faith and recording all the information they need to be, but not holding it all in one place,” said Alex Stevens, south-west food and farming adviser at the NFU.
“There is also a lack of clarity and understanding after the rules changed to bring in electronic identification – people don’t know exactly what they are meant to be doing.”
“Manually reading every tag is also a big task, and there is no logical diseased-based reason for recording on an individual basis when sheep are being moved in a batch.”
Most single payment deductions were pegged at 3-5%, depending on the severity of the breach, he added.
“On average, you’re looking at a cut of about £2,000 – on a small sheep enterprise that could be your entire profit. And when sheep form a small part of a larger mixed farm the deduction could be very large indeed, so there is little incentive in keeping sheep at all.”
Top 10 cross-compliance transgressions
Philip Case on G+