Landowners concerned over land eligibility rules

Brian Donaldson • Published 1 Apr 2011 09:30 0 Comments

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Some landowners are still concerned and also confused over the new regulations coming into force this year over land eligibility and how it might their claims for Single Farm Payment.

DARD came to Fermanagh on Monday to explain the land eligibility rules which will govern farmers' claims over 2011 SFP. In all they gave four different presentations throughout Monday afternoon and the large numbers of farmers attending signified the importance of this issue.

The numerous questions asked indicated a sense of frustration and sometimes confusion over how the new rules are being applied. However at the end of the day, claimants need to be careful when entering details of fields containing features which might be deemed ineligible. The message is; if in doubt, leave out.

It was indicated clearly from the outset by the meeting Chairman, Professor Eric Long and the main speaker, Aidan McEvoy, a senior inspector involved in cross compliance rules, that it was officials from the European Commission who set the rules over Single Farm Payment eligibility and that DARD had to enforce them.

The meeting covered the reasons why the new changes have had to be made. With land based schemes bringing in over £300 million to Northern Ireland each year, it was important that farmers maximised their incomes but only by claiming what was rightfully theirs. Any false claims would be subject to penalties in their SFP claims.

The Department have had to pay disallowances to Europe of the order of £30 million for 2005 and 2005 claims and another audit was due this year.

From the end of this week, farmers would be receiving their SFP packs as well as a Land Eligibility Booklet and aerial or ortho photographs of their farm.

Later this year, DARD will be issuing each landowner with new updated aerial maps for each of the 750,000 fields under the Land Parcel Identification System(LPIS) project.

Aidan McEvoy introduced the various areas which farmers must comply with, based on permanent pastures, arable crops or permanent crops.

There was a tolerance allowance of 0.01 hectare or 10m x 10m and any feature in size above this must be taken off field use in SFP claims.

Features such as slurry stores, buildings, roadways, quarries, concrete areas, rock outcrops, hardcore lanes which had grassed over and other lanes used for transport along edges of fields were ineligible.

Farmers can claim on fields where big bales, machinery and loads of stones have been deposited as a temporary measure. There is no need to deduct these areas from SFP claims unless they are there year after year in which case the area would be ineligible.

Also eligible are areas where normal agricultural activities were being carried out such as sheugh cleaning, hedgecutting, field drainage, farmyard manure field heaps and ploughing.

Scrub was a contentious area for many farmers. Scrub under any form was not eligible and it can be calculated depending whether it is dense, or scattered throughout a field. Farmers raised concerns about how to calculate areas of scrub but Aidan McEvoy said that a scorecard system could be adopted to calculate the areas involved. If there was scrub cover of five per cent or less, there would be no deduction, between six and 20 per cent cover, a reduction of 10 per cent from the field area; between 21-50 per cent, a reduction of 35 per cent from the field area would be required and if scrub covered more than 50 per cent of the field, the entire field area would have to be taken off the claim.

Heather was acceptable on a one-to-one assessment and only if it was under 50cms in height, and in fields accessible and in agricultural use.

Rushes were eligible provided they were in fields for agricultural use.

There were many concerns over boundaries such as hedges. No action needs to be taken where hedges were up to two metres from the centre of the hedge at the base into a field. If it is a dividing hedge between fields, then four metres width of hedge is allowed in total.

There was concern from some farmers that an earlier inspection had passed hedges but now they might be deemed ineligible under the new rules. Mr. McEvoy could not answer if penalties would apply retrospectively.

Watercourses managed by the Rivers Agency were not eligible features but sheughs throughout the farm were. Where a sheugh was fenced off, the area inside the fence towards the hedge and sheugh was eligible provided the top of the sheugh to the fence line was no more than one metre.

Some landowners were confused over some features and how they could be calculated and wondered how the new ortho maps might help them work out the areas involved.

For further advice, landowners can see their fields online using DARD's computer system.

This article appeared in Impartial Reporter 31 Mar 11

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