Things to check to avoid cross compliance failure

Cross Compliance rules are a set of guidelines farmers and landowners must follow if they claim the Basic Payment Scheme. Farmers must comply with statutory management requirements (SMR) and also ensure that the land is in good agricultural and environmental condition (GAEC) for the full scheme year from January 1 to December 31.

For 2017, the rules remain relatively unchanged with the exception of GAEC 1 - Establishment of buffer strips along watercourses. From January 1, 2017, all land parcels next to watercourses l have to comply with rules to protect watercourses against pollution and runoff from agricultural sources, with farmers needing to establish and maintain buffer strips of two metres from the centre of a watercourse or ditch or for one metre from the edge of a watercourse or ditch on the landward side of the top of the bank.

For these buffer strips, a green cover must be maintained and no fertilisers, pesticides or cultivations applied. In previous years, land parcels of two hectares or less have been excluded from this rule but from January 1 the rules apply to all land parcels regardless of their size.

In terms of Cross Compliance inspections, 2015 inspection data highlighted common failures. The top failure being SMR 4 - Food and Feed Law, where farmers had failed to undertake a cattle TB test by the prescribed date with TB testing intervals depending on location. This breach is picked up automatically even if testing is only one day later than required. Therefore it is important to ensure testing takes place ahead of deadlines.

The second most common failure was for SMR 7 - Cattle Identification and Registration with farmers failing to report cattle movements and deaths. This SMR had a failure rate of 47 per cent at inspection.

The third most common failure was for SMR 1 - NVZ Regulations where no, or incomplete, copies of the required records were available on request. Farmers in an NVZ need to keep comprehensive records including risk maps of the whole farm, field records, livestock calculations and imports and exports of manure. Farmers are thought to have a 30 per cent chance of failing this SMR during inspection based on the 2015 inspection data.

The fourth most common failure was SMR 8 - Sheep and Goat Identification with a 25 per cent failure rate during the 2015 inspections. Farmers failed to record movements, births, deaths, replacement tags and annual inventories.

Among the 10 most common failures are non-existent or inadequate buffer strips along watercourses (GAEC 1) and buffer strips along boundaries (GAEC 7a), failure to keep medicine records and animal welfare concerns under SMR 13 (Animal Welfare) and sprays not applied correctly or in accordance to the code of practice under SMR 10 (Plant Protection Products).

With inspectors now turning up more and more unannounced, it is important that farm and livestock records are kept up to date at all times to prevent Cross Compliance breaches and penalties being applied to BPS payments.

Anne-Marie Brettell is a rural chartered surveyor with Nock Deighton Agricultural LLP