As things stand, the current system of direct payments will last for two more years, with a single application form (SAF) to be submitted in 2018 and in 2019.

It also means the transition to flat-rate payments will continue, and by 2019, entitlements that started out in 2015 either above or below the NI average of approximately €330/ha, will have moved five steps out of seven to that average.

But what happens after the UK leaves the EU in 2019? The British government has effectively guaranteed that payments will continue in their current form to the end of the current parliament in 2022. That, in effect, probably means an SAF submitted in 2021. But on top of that, the latest indications from Defra Secretary Michael Gove is that payments in England might actually continue to 2024.

So what NI decides to do with payments after 2019 could still be significant – do we freeze all payments at 2019 levels or allow the transition to flat rate to continue to 2021?

Like most things in NI, there are two schools of thought. Those favouring a freeze in entitlement values point out that it effectively means a greater proportion of money goes to farmers who produce food. Those against argue that, in general, it is farmers on more marginal land who lose out, and these farmers have already seen £20m taken out of their pockets with the decision to stop the Areas of Natural Constraint (ANC) scheme.

Entitlement values

But perhaps the most over-riding argument against freezing entitlement values in 2019 is that it effectively locks in a system that has been very unfair on farmers who have expanded their businesses in recent years. Between 2005 and right up to 2014, the single farm payment was dictated by production in the reference years of 2000 to 2002. And from 2015 onwards, the influence of those reference years, while gradually diminishing, is still there.

If it could be done, the fairest outcome after 2019 might be some form of re-calculation of entitlement values based on production in recent years, not on what happened 20 years ago.