In light of the Greening rule changes which have been announced for the 2018 BPS, we have updated our Greening Factsheet. This can be found by clicking on the ‘Bulletins’ tab at the top of the page.
Tag: BPS
BPS Update
Active Farmer Test
The Active Farmer rule is being abolished in England as from the 2018 BPS year. No decisions have been announced yet for the other devolved regions. Following the adoption of the CAP Simplification: Omnibus Regulation, Member States were given the option to drop the Active Farmer rule. DEFRA has decided to take up this option and therefore the ‘negative list’ and and the ‘readmission criteria’ are no longer applicable. In England the readmission criteria was fairly loose anyway, meaning that even if a business operated one of the entities on the negative list, if they claimed more than 36 Ha they were still classed as an Active Farmer.
Despite this rule change, the RPA’s Rural Payment System is not going to be re-programmed for 2018, so will still be expecting Active Farmer information. At the point of submission, it may still be necessary to tick a box indicating the claimant is an Active Farmer. Alternatively, the system may simply pre-populate everyone as an Active Farmer. Where a standalone Active Farmer declaration would previously have been required, this will still be needed for this year.
The most common reason for a standalone declaration is to allow entitlements to be transferred to someone who did not submit a BPS in 2017. Therefore, new claimants for 2018, who wish to receive entitlements, will have to complete an Active Farmer declaration despite their being no Active Farmer rule! The declaration can be found on the ‘Business Overview’ page on a claimant’s Rural Payment account. Everybody should now click ‘No – I qualify as an active farmer’. The standalone form should be completed before the transfer of entitlements, otherwise the entitlements will remain in ‘pending’ and will require the RPA to manually intervene. Please note if a BPS application was submitted in 2017, the Active Farmer status is still valid this year and a standalone declaration is not required.
Young Farmers Payment
The rules surrounding the Young Farmers top-up payment have altered slightly. This is, again, following the adoption of the ‘Omnibus Regulation’. It sees the payment being made for five years from the year of their first BPS submission. The previous rules saw the payment being made for a maximum of five years from when the young farmer started or took control of the business. There is also the option to increase the top-up to 50% of the average value of the claimants entitlements from the current 25%. Neither DEFRA or the other devolved regions have announced their decision on this yet.
Mapping Update
The RPA has finished the Proactive Land Change Detection (PLCD) mapping update which it started last summer. The maps on the Rural Payment Service should now reflect these amendments, although as many will be aware, not all the changes the RPA has made are correct.
Previously, the RPA said it would have finished the PLCD by the end of October and where applicants or agents did not agree with any amendments they should send in an RLE1 with ‘PLCD Query’ written on the front and complete with the details they wanted to challenge. As the mapping update has dragged on longer and the way it was carried out meant notifications came in dribs and drabs, unless there has been a significant problem with payments, it looks like most will pick up the changes when going through this year’s application. But, potentially there could be a lot to unpick. Ineligible features have been incorrectly removed and new ones put in, fields that have been temporarily split, with electric fencing, for grazing paddocks have been permanently split into separate field parcels and other parcels have been incorrectly merged to give just a few examples. Currently the only way to rectify these will be via paper RLE1s. This is likely to make the 2018 application more time consuming than usual and claimants and their Agents may want to set-aside additional time. Stakeholders are looking into whether there could be a less bureaucratic process. We will update readers if and when there is any progress on this.
Greening Update
DEFRA has confirmed a number of further updates to the Greening rules for 2018. Our article back in August (see https://abcbooks.co.uk/2018-greening-rules-confirmed/) reported some changes, in particular the ban on the use of PPPs on Ecological Focus Areas (EFAs). But readers will recall we have been waiting for confirmation surrounding the rules for EFA fallow, these and a few other small but quite key changes have also been confirmed.
With regards to fallow, DEFRA has confirmed it will still be possible to graze and mow EFA fallow outside the the EFA fallow period, which runs from 1st January to 30th June 2018. There had been concerns that changes to the rules by the EU Commission would prevent this; indeed Wales has disallowed any grazing or mowing for the entire calendar year on land declared as EFA fallow. There has however been some changes to what is allowed during the EFA fallow period. In England between 1st January and 30th June producers must not carry out the following operations on EFA fallow land;
- cultivate to control weeds
- apply PPPs to the land
- sow grass, unless specifically required under a Rural Development Scheme
- apply any manure or fertiliser
In addition, a rule change means that land declared as fallow, including EFA fallow, for more than 5 years will convert to permanent pasture after the 5 year period. However, the clock only starts ticking from 2018, so the earliest date this will be effective from is 2023. This means that land which has been EFA fallow will no longer be allowed to be EFA fallow in the 6th year as it will become permanent pasture (which is ineligible to site EFA). This seems to force people to plough-out areas such as field corners or margins after a period of time – which appears a backwards step in environmental terms. It must be noted however that Brexit means that this rule change may never have any practical effect.
Other key changes include;
- the multiplier for EFA Nitrogen Fixing Crops has increased from 0.7 to 1, meaning 1 Ha of NFC is now worth 1 Ha of EFA (although far fewer claimants will be using NFC this eyar due to the ban on PPPs)
- the 30 Ha limit for Greening exemptions has been removed. Previously, where claimants had more than 75% of their eligible arable land in permanent or temporary grassland or where more than 75% of their arable land was in fallow or temporary grassland they were exempt from Greening as long as the remaining arable area was less than 30 hectares. As from 2018, this 30 hectare limit has been removed. This was a potential problem for dairy farmers who were all grassland apart from some maize.
Finally we understand that inspectors will be keen this year to ensure that where there is an EFA fallow area next to an EFA field margin, the two are visually distinguishable, this could be different sward heights. If, as an agent, your client has a temporary grass strip and the first metre is claimed as an EFA margin and the remainder as EFA fallow, ensure they are familiar with the rules.
Online Entitlements and Land Transfers
The RPA has switched on the the functionality to allow online transfers of land and also entitlements for the 2018 Basic Payment Scheme. Readers will know that the online system to transfer land and entitlements is switched off after the application deadline to ensure that the data held for each holding is ‘stable’ until claims have been validated. Paper RLE1s are available all year round to make transfers but where possible it is better to wait for the online system.
The deadline for the transfer of entitlements for use in the 2018 scheme is the 15th May 2018 in England. Any transfers will be confirmed via ‘messages’ on the online system. The transfer is usually done immediately, although if the transferee has not been paid their 2017 payment, the transfer may be held in ‘pending’ until this has been completed.
If transferring land and the ‘holding type’ online is shown as ‘Tenant’ or the ‘% Owned’ is shown as less than ‘100% owned’ on the Rural Payments system, unfortunately it can only be transferred via a paper RLE1 form.
Gove and Future Farm Support
Speaking at the Oxford Farming Conference, the DEFRA Secretary, Michael Gove, has provided some clarity around the future of farm support.
It is becoming increasingly clear that, as we speculated last month, whilst the UK is in the (two year) ‘transition period’ the rules of the CAP will continue to apply. Therefore, assuming that the transition is agreed and we do not simply crash-out of the EU on the 30th March 2019, the BPS will continue to apply in the UK for both the 2019 and 2020 year.
The 2021 year seems a grey area. A full two-year transition would take the timing into March 2021 and it is likely that the BPS would apply once more. However, there are noises within the EU that the transition should end on 30th December 2020 to fit in with the EU Budget periods. If this is the case, the UK might move to a domestic agricultural policy at this point.
Whilst operating under the rules of the CAP, there is little scope for the UK to change the support system in the short term. However, MR Gove has indicated that he wants to see BPS payments to the largest recipients ‘capped’ (which is allowed under existing EU rules). This would not happen for the 2019 year, but would be introduced for 2020 onwards. Of course, the devil is in the detail when it comes to capping – thresholds and rates have not been set. A cap at the equivalent of €300,000 (as currently operates Wales) would not affect many claimants, but one set at the National Living Wage certainly would. A ‘Command Paper’ will be published ‘later this spring’ which should set out the proposed plans for farm support and be subject to consultation. Note that the level of capping is a devolved matter so this proposal only applies to the English BPS.
Mr Gove stated that there should be a ‘five year period’ after BPS 2019 to allow farmers to adjust to a new regime. This suggest a BPS-like area payment would continue until 2024 and after that, any payment would only be for ‘public goods’. However, claimants should not necessarily conclude that the BPS in its current form, and at its current level will be around until 2024. Firstly, MR Gove indicated that, once outside of the restrictions of the CAP (2021 or 2022) rules such a Greening and Cross-compliance could be ditched. Against this positive, we believe that payment rates will taper down in the period 2021 to 2024 in order to ‘wean’ farmers off direct payments, and to free-up funds for other programmes. To summarise all this (assuming a transition deal with Europe is agreed);
- 2019: BPS – same rules as now
- 2020: BPS, but with capping – detailed rules awaited
- 2021: likely to be as per 2020, but could first year of British Agricultural Policy
- 2022: almost certainly BAP (unless transition period is extended) – phasing down of Direct Payments likely to start (capping still in place)
- 2023 and 2024: phasing continues as new ‘public goods’ schemes begin to be rolled-out
- 2025: no more direct support
Other headline points from the speech include;
- a guarantee that no one entering into the existing Countryside Stewardship Scheme will be unfairly disadvantaged in any transition to new arrangements
- a commitment to simplify the CSS application process so that it can be completed in a working day
- a new food standards measure to promote best practice and assist in marketing UK produce at home and abroad
- changing procurement rules to help get more British food into public institutions and improving diets to reduce health issues
The full text of Mr Gove’s speech can be found at – https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/farming-for-the-next-generation
BPS Updates for England
Payments
Michael Gove has reported that 91% of claimants received their 2017 BPS payment by the end of December. We do, however, know that due to outstanding issues with 2015 and 2016 claims a number of 2017 payments will also be incorrect. Added to that, the Proactive Land Change Detection (PLCD) mapping updates that the RPA has been carrying out may also mean that payments are not correct and therefore must be checked carefully.
Where a payment is believed to be incorrect because of issues that have already been reported to the RPA for 2015 and 2016 it should not be necessary to raise these again; the 2017 payment should be looked at as part of the outstanding Post Payment Adjustment work. But if the issue is just for 2017, a Payment Query Form should be submitted. Claim Statements, once again, will not contain individual parcel information and it is therefore difficult to check where the differences are. But if Applicants or Agents log onto the Rural Payments online service and scroll down to ‘Basic Payment Scheme Applications’ and then click on ‘View a Previous BPS Claim’ and generate a new summary, this will show the most update land and entitlement information and that which the RPA has used to generate the payment. If this is used to compare with a copy of the submitted claim it should show up any differences.
Entitlements and Land Transfers
The online entitlement and land transfer functionality is expected to be available from the end of January/beginning of February. It is of course possible to carry out these transfers using a paper RLE1 form, but if possible it is better to wait until the online transfer facility is re-opened. This is because RLE1s are not always processed until after the claim deadline, whereas the online functionality is practically done in real-time and you receive an acknowledgement. The deadline for entitlements to be transferred for use in the 2018 scheme year is 15th May 2018.
Welsh BPS Updates
Changes to Land
In Wales, the Field Management (FM4) paper forms used to to report changes to land have been replaced. ‘Manage My Land’ on the RPW Online system should now be used instead of the paper forms. Any changes to land should be submitted via ‘Manage My Land’ within 30 days of the change taking place.
Entitlements
The transfer of BPS entitlements can be made via the forms available on applicants’ RPW Online account. The notification deadline of transfers for entitlements to be available for the 2018 scheme year is 30th April in Wales.
BPS Payment Update
The RPA has announced that, as at the 20th December, 84% of claimants had received their 2017 BPS. This equates to around 71,000 businesses receiving some £1.3bn. Payments will continue to be made through to the end of the month, with the target still to get 90% of claims paid by this point.
BPS 2017 Payment Progress
The RPA has announced it paid 63% of eligible BPS claimants in England between 1st and 6th of December. The announcement was not made until 7th December; usually a statement is made within a couple of days. Interestingly the RPA is not quoting payments in terms of total funds which makes the sceptics among us think that payments have been made to smaller claimants. Certainly many Agents, who tend to deal with larger claims, don’t recognise the 60% figure among their client base. But the RPA has said payments have been made to a range of claim types; different sizes as well as those that have been inspected and those with Common Land. It appears this year that payments will be made at more regular intervals throughout the month, which may explain why the first announcement was covering a few days, rather than just day one. The agency remains committed to pay at least 90% of eligible claimants by the end of December.
In Wales, 91% of BPS claimants were paid on the first day of the payment window (1st December – 30th June) and RPA Wales has said it is committed to paying the remaining 9% as soon as possible.
In Scotland and Northern Ireland payments commenced earlier. The Scottish Government has again made a National Loan Scheme available. Loan offers have been made to nearly 17,500 farmers and crofters, with 13,129 being paid by 30th November. The loan is worth approximately 70% of the estimated total claim; balance payments will be made between March and June. For those who have not already taken up the loan offer, it is still possible to apply. Northern Ireland took up the EU’s offer of making advanced payments and 91% of eligible claimants received 70% of their BPS claim value in October. Balance or full payments are now being made and the commitment is to make full or balance payments to 95% of claimants by the end of December.