Red tape trimmed from BPS stop-gap

A streamlined farm subsidy regime has been drawn up for Wales to bridge the post-Brexit gap until the country’s new Sustainable Farming Scheme (SFS) is in place.

Broadly the same as the current Basic Payment Scheme (BPS), it includes minor changes that may impact on young farmers, growers and cross-border producers.

The proposed package includes a new made-for-Wales rural development programme (RDP), to run until 2023.

Scheme funding is expected to be confirmed by Westminster in this autumn’s comprehensive spending review.

Industry leaders applauded the cutting of red tape in the interim scheme.

“Welsh farmers welcome anything which makes life simpler,” said Fraser McAuley, CLA Cymru’s senior policy advisor.

Cross-border claims: Cardiff proposes to take only Welsh land into account for calculating its 600 cross-border claims.

As a result, payments will be made as soon as checks in Wales are completed.

However, Welsh claims cannot be for less than 5ha of land.

Greening: Cardiff wants to retain existing standards and practices. However it will abandon some cross-compliance complexities affecting the 3% of claimants with permanent grassland.

The Crop Diversification element will also be dropped as its has little impact in Wales.

Young farmers: The Young Farmer Scheme provides a small BPS top-up for those under the age of 40.

This is to be scrapped as the payment accounts for only 0.2% of the total budget. Payments will continue for existing claimants.

Documentation: Deadline for submitting BPS supporting documents is to be extended until December 31 each year.

However applications must still be submitted by May 15 and late penalties (1% per day) will stay unchanged.

Farm inspections: The number of on-the-spot-checks is to be cut from 5% to 3% of the total number of farms involved in all schemes. This will include EU RDP inspections.

Advance payments: Advance payments of 70% of the anticipated claim value are to be made automatically to all BPS claimants in October each year.

The balance will be paid from the following February.

RDP: Cardiff proposes a domestic RDP that will have different aims from its EU predecessors.

The focus will be on wildlife conservation, improving rural services and public access to the countryside by the public.

NFU Cymru’s John Davies said the changes may not come soon enough for arable farmers who are already planning for the 2021 harvest.

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