Farming Talk: Eco area rules will affect payment claims
In less than two months we will all have submitted our last Single Farm Payment application and our thoughts will turn to the new Basic Payment Scheme, which I think resembles Alice in Wonderland as nothing is quite what it seems!
The Basic Payment is likely to be 10 per cent less than the current SFP and comprises two parts: a basic element which represents 70 per cent and a greening element which represents 30 per cent.
While greening is not mandatory, 37.5 per cent of the total BP could be lost by 2018, if greening is not practised.
Greening has three elements which need to be considered. Grassland, which has been down more than five years, is considered "permanent" and at a national level the area of permanent grassland must not fall more than five per cent below its 2012 level. ELS and HLS margins will not be classed as permanent grassland, but arable reversion may well be.
Arable land, which also includes temporary grassland, needs to practise crop diversification and have Ecological Focus Areas.
The crop diversification rule divides arable land into three categories:
Less than10 hectares of arable land, no cropping restrictions, 10 to 30 hectares of arable land, at least two crops must be grown, and more than 30 hectares of arable land, at least three crops must be grown and the two main crops must not exceed 95 per cent of the total arable area.
The final hurdle is the need to establish EFAs where more than 15 hectares of arable crops are grown. The EFA must represent five per cent of the arable area and options may include fallow, hedges, buffer strips, catch crops and nitrogen fixing crops. The various options which can contribute towards the EFA are given a weighting.
Leguminous crops would have a weighting of 0.3 so 16.6 per cent of the arable area would need to grow spring beans, as an example, to satisfy the five per cent EFA requirement. However it would appearthat a crop of spring beans (nitrogen fixing) could satisfy the EFA requirement and represent a crop under crop diversification with the result that none of the arable land would need to be in EFA.
Crops planted this autumn will need to satisfy the above requirements but we still do not have enough information with which to make decisions.
Defra has indicated it will provide further detail n April. For updates on the new rules, let me have an email address so that we can send our farming newsletters.
Jon Birchall, Balfours Farm Business Adviser, jonbirchall@balfours.co.uk 07450 406 734
