Oilseed aid worries unfounded

29 June 2001



Oilseed aid worries unfounded

By FWi staff

INDUSTRIAL oilseed growers worried that their area aid might be at risk because of low yields can breathe again, claims the National Farmers Union.

Flexibility has been built into the payments scheme to take account of poor establishment caused by last autumns exceptional circumstances.

NFU arable specialist Paul Ibbott confirmed this after a visit to the European Commission in Brussels last week.

There had been fears that growers not meeting the “representative yield” for non-food crops might have forfeited their aid payments, he said.

Normally that yield is about 40% below the average for commercial crops.

“We were assured by the Commission that there is an over-riding paragraph in the regulations to allow for representative yield to reflect the difficult conditions.”

Now we need to make sure that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs understands that this flexibility exists, he added.

• Set-aside deadline eased over floods? FWi, 5 January, 2001
• NFU anger as agrimoney chance lost, FWi, 1 May, 2001