Shropshire Star

Farming Talk – could cross compliance penalties be the coal in your stocking?

By Georgie Hyde, cross compliance adviser & rural professional assistant at Moule & Co

Published
Georgie Hyde

As the countdown to December approaches, the cattle are heading indoors to their winter beds and the ewes are looking well in the run up to lambing.

Arable fields play host to game shooting as most of the countryside is looking quiet and settled with the hedges cut and fields planted.

With shops preparing for Christmas, farmers are also looking forward to their own special Christmas present.

Every year, almost as reliable as Father Christmas, the Basic Payment is delivered to thousands of farm bank accounts up and down the country. Depending on whether you have been naughty or nice, there may be penalties attached.

The most common penalties for cross compliance breaches can cost you between one and 15 per cent of your total BPS and stewardship claims.

In 2016 the three highest failures rates were:

– Cattle identification and registration (49.5 per cent)

– Reduce water pollution in a Nitrate Vulnerable Zone (NVZ ) (28.1 per cent)

– Sheep and goat identification (25.1 per cent)

Some record keeping failures are easily remedied – the hardest part is being disciplined enough to sit down and do them, which is where I come in.

I have recently joined Moule & Co, a firm of rural chartered surveyors, farm business and planning consultants as a cross compliance advisor.

We all know and appreciate that farmers want to farm, meaning that often paperwork is bottom of the agenda.

Luckily for farmers across the West Midlands, as the temperature drops and the wintery showers begin, I am more than happy to be office bound for a week or two completing cross compliance paperwork.

Our ‘no frills’ package provides a streamlined service which is there to make sure you will pass an inspection should the RPA come knocking. The package is simple and affordable, but does the job and with inspectors often turning up with little or no notice, we like to make sure everything is up to date and quickly accessible.

Whether the inspector is from the RPA, Defra or APHA, they don’t have to be scrooge this Christmas. If you are worried your paperwork isn’t up to scratch, get in touch and ask about our ‘no frills’ Cross Compliance Package.