The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) has been sending texts to farmers over the past number of weeks who were shown to have an error on any land parcel that they submitted as part of their online basic payment scheme (BPS) application.

The messages are instructing farmers to log on to their online application and correct an error on a dual claim, an over-claim or an overlap on parcels.

Farmers have until Monday 20 June to amend these claims without incurring a penalty.

This system was introduced to reduce the amount of errors that are made and to reduce possible penalties that may occur.

Farmers who have received text messages are encouraged to amend their application as soon as possible so as to avoid any penalty that may occur.

Paper applicants will not benefit from these systems, as they will not receive preliminary checks on their applications, as the DAFM tries to encourage the use of the online system for submitting the BPS application. Paper applications will not get the benefit of fixing what could be a simple mistake before any possible penalty.

Late applicants who submitted their applications online after the deadline of 31 May received a penalty of 1% per working day on amended parcels. However, they are also receiving text messages about errors in their application and are getting the chance to amend these errors to prevent further penalties.

William Conlon