Cross compliance inspections carried out last year resulted in 931 penalties being handed to NI farmers, new figures from DAERA indicate.

As outlined in Figure 1, the total number of farm penalties in 2024 is similar to the previous two years but remains well ahead of the levels that were seen prior to 2022.

Figure 2 shows that rules related to landscape features, water pollution and cattle ID made up 80% of all cross compliance penalties last year.

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After that, animal welfare rules were the next most common issue, although total fines for these regulations have almost halved from 181 fines in 2023 to 93 last year.

Analysis by the Irish Farmers Journal indicates that three-quarters of all cross compliance breaches last year led to penalties which were worth 3% or less of each farmer’s payment.

The figures indicate that more smaller penalties were handed out last year, as 65% of fines in 2023 equated to 3% or less of farm payments.

It should be noted that a farm can receive more than one penalty in a single year if it is found to break multiple cross compliance rules.

Large fines were still handed out by DAERA in 2024, with the figures indicating that 9% of penalties were worth over 20% of each farmer’s payment.

The number of cross compliance inspections carried out on NI farms has rose again, with 2,104 checks taking place last year, up slightly from 2,082 inspections in 2023.

It compares to 1,989 cross compliance checks in 2022 and 1,554 inspections the year before that.

The vast bulk cross compliance checks continue to be conducted on farms that are already seen by DAERA as being at risk of breaking the rules.

For example, the largest number of checks still relate to cattle ID, with 619 inspections carried out last year.

Of these, 75% were risk-based checks and only 25% were random inspections.

Land eligibility

Even though current land eligibility rules are set to be scrapped from next year, the latest figures show that DAERA is still actively enforcing the existing rules.

There were 250 inspections to check that claimed land is in “good agricultural and environmental condition” last year, and 23 penalties were handed out as a result.

The total area that land eligibility penalties were calculated on in 2024 came to 36 hectares and penalties amounted to £7,409 overall.