New Farm Payment: final rules agreed

Concessions confirmed for conacre, forestry and retired farmers

By Paul Mooney and Pat O’Keeffe

These will make it easier for farmers to claim all of the entitlements they built up in the reference years - allowing stacking of entitlements where rented land is lost as long as at least 50% of the land base remains.

The detailed rules will also aid certain farmers who acquired land or made other farming investments during or since the reference years and who otherwise would have no matching entitlements.

The rules that were agreed last night are in line with the details revealed by the Journal in recent weeks - but with important additions. In his statement Minister Walsh detailed the rules as follows.

Land requirement

Member states can consolidate (stack) payment entitlements for certain categories of farmers on to the actual number of hectares of land farmed in 2005, Minister Walsh said.

This is provided that the farmer declares all the hectares available to him or her in 2005 and that the total declared is at least 50% of the average number of hectares declared during the reference years.

This provision can be applied to the following categories of farmers:

• those who have afforested some of their land since the beginning of the reference period.

• farmers who disposed of land to a Public Authority for non-agricultural use.

• farmers who had land leased/rented in during the reference period but the lease/rental agreement has since expired.

• farmers who declared land situated in Northern Ireland during the reference period.

This stacking concession can be availed of more than once provided that the farmer concerned continues to declare at least 50% of the land area farmed during the reference period, Walsh said. It would also be beneficial to farmers considering afforestation in 2005 or subsequent years.

However, he pointed out that consolidation cannot apply to any farmer who disposed of land by way sale or lease other than the sale of land to a public authority for non-agricultural use.

And he warned that stacked entitlements will be regarded as having come from the National Reserve and will therefore be subject to certain restrictions.

They cannot be sold or leased out for five years and the farmer must use all of these entitlements himself each year for a period of five years - any not used will revert to the National Reserve.

Notification of Payment Entitlements now the priority

Minister Walsh said that the priority for his Department now was to establish provisional payment entitlements for every individual farmer in the country and to notify those provisional entitlements to farmers as soon as was possible. Much work had already been done and the work can now proceed at pace given the agreement on the Commission detailed rules, he said.

On receipt of the notification of provisional entitlements farmers will be able to raise any queries that they may have, he said. "The intention is that the National Reserve will be set up and distributed before the end of this year with a view to issuing notification of definitive entitlements to farmers to accompany their 2005 Area Aid application form.''

• The Department of Agriculture intends to update the Information Booklet originally issued last September and issue a copy to each farmer later this year.