French Minister for Agriculture Stéphane Le Foll said in a statement he had received official confirmation from the European Commission that farmers working on leased land could transfer their lease without their successor losing established entitlements to European payments.

“This is a major point for the fair implementation of CAP, which allows all situations to be treated without discrimination between farmers operating on owned and leased land,” Le Foll said.

Since the beginning of the year, French farming organisations had been campaigning for entitlements to be transferred with all farms under the new Basic Payment Scheme (BPS), including those with no or partial land ownership.

“Up until now, the European Commission was asking those people to go back to the national reserve and draw BPS at the post-convergence rate,” Jérémie Decerle, vice-president of the young farmers’ union Jeunes Agriculteurs told the Irish Farmers’ Journal. “The rules were inadequate considering young farmers who start up are required to draw up an economic plan based on data from the farmer they are replacing, including existing payments. This problem has now been corrected,” he said.

According to Decerle, people taking over farms on leased land where entitlements represented up to €800 to their predecessor were faced with an immediate drop to the post-convergence rate of around €120. They will now be subjected to gradual convergence at the same pace as other farmers.

Although the French department of agriculture does not have figures on the number of transfers affected, a spokesman said cases had been identified nationwide where “not transferring the references with leases would have deprived the beneficiary of significant amounts of aid”.

Farming organizations in the Finistère district of Brittany said earlier this year that 90% of farm transfers in their area last year matched that description.