It’s hard to imagine a less subtle piece of encouragement than that offered by DARD in the application process for the new Basic Payment Scheme.

Hints are splashed across most official correspondence, including bold red capital letters (in bigger print than the closing date warning), saying ‘‘COMPLETE YOUR SINGLE APPLICATION ONLINE’’.

There is also a coloured card inside the application pack, with a long list of reasons as to why it is better to use this method. I have just completed the process, but I must confess, I did it the outdated, awkward, time-consuming and non-user friendly way by filling in the paper form and handing it across the counter at my local DARD Direct office.

Advantages

The long lists of fantastic advantages to completing the application online are correct, up to a point. If you are farming the same land as last year, and all pre-printed information is unchanging, the online method may be slightly faster (and will save you a car journey to your local office).

But I had a bit of newly acquired land that had supposedly been sorted out on the LPIS mapping system back in September. Except that someone, somewhere, had forgotten to put it on to the system and the mapping change to one of the fields was unrecognised by the computer process when I went to complete my Single Application Form online.

This necessitated another visit to the DARD office and I was told that this field was now on LPIS, and should be available online within three working days. A few days later, I tried again to enter the new field and got the repeated answer that the field did not exist.

Frustration

I consider myself a pretty average farmer when it comes to computer literacy, but the mixture of anxiety, stress and three days of frustration was just too much to bear.

With the computer screen well coated in saliva and my blood pressure through the roof, I finally sat down with the paper form and slowly ticked off each field, while cross referencing it against farm maps and sheets. What’s more, I found it about 20 times less stressful.

Next morning, I wandered into a DARD Direct office at a 9.15am, and one of those pleasant and helpful staff members (they all seem to be lovely people) checked that I hadn’t made any glaring mistakes, and then gave me a receipt to confirm I had handed in my application.

Of course, while I was there I had the added pleasure of chatting to a couple of local farmers, ensuring I headed for home in a fairly relaxed frame of mind.

Average

At some point, we will all have to move to an online application process – I fully accept and understand this. But, as things stand, this supposedly simple system is not easy enough for the average farmer to understand.

For example, changing field information data is not complicated if you are a daily computer user in your everyday employment, but it was for me. I honestly think that if there were two application processes available online – one for advanced computer users, and one for six-year-old schoolchildren, the latter would be used by a lot of the over-50 farmers. I am not trying to belittle any farmer, merely make the point that DARD is wrong in thinking its online application process is dead simple – it isn’t.

Last year I applied online, and had no bother at all. And perhaps next year I won’t have any new fields to establish, or any new codes to add in. But if any difficulties arise, the importance of having something down in black ink, where a real person can cast their eye over what you have done, cannot be overstated.

However, I sense more and more reluctance by DARD staff to do anything other than a basic check on the paper forms, and this gradual withdrawal from a completely hands-on approach is another stealth tactic by those urging us to move completely online.

Greening calculation

One real advantage of the online system is the automatic greening calculation. I already knew I had no greening requirement, but nonetheless it was comforting to see it up on the screen in front of me.

Land use codes

At the back of the booklet to help you fill in the 2015 Single Application Form are about 60 eligible land use codes. However, some of my ineligible areas (ungrazed woodland and marsh) had the code FOD. I couldn’t find what this stood for, and asked a few people (including the DARD staff), but so far no one has come up with the answer.

Waste exemption

Confusion still reigns supreme when it comes to ticking boxes for the waste exemption category. I phoned a few friends and although none of them had more of a clue than me, we agreed that if we were all in equal bother for ticking the wrong boxes, at least there was safety in numbers.

For the record, I ticked yes for questions 20, 21c, and 22. I have no idea if I am right or wrong. DARD staff advised me to check out the NIEA website, but that was yet another dead-end computer journey. I wouldn’t advise anyone to try and get answers from that direction.

Student finance application for 2015/16

Susan and I have just finished completing my son’s student finance application for 2015/16, using information from the tax year ending 31 March 14.

It seems entirely reasonable to compare this with the online SAF, and it was a near pleasure by comparison. A step-by-step process was easy to follow, almost childlike in its simplicity, and had concise, clear questions that weren’t couched in incomprehensible English.

If they needed any information, it was so obvious that even me, with my phobia about form-filling, couldn’t take a wrong path. It was as close as I have experienced to being taken by the hand, and led somewhere.

In this second part of the article David Wright writes about the number of questions on the SAF on waste exemptions that are effectively unrelated to the main issues.

Back in 2007, after intense lobbying from the Ulster Farmers’ Union (UFU), the then Minister for the Environment Arlene Foster decided that it would not be necessary for farmers in NI to individually register for licences to handle farm wastes.

Instead a number of agricultural activities were exempted from the full rigours of waste management controls and a process created that allowed farmers to register for these exemptions on the Single Application Form (SAF). It was a decision that avoided a lot of added bureaucracy into farming.

However, it means that the annual SAF has a number of questions on waste exemptions that are effectively unrelated to the main issues of land area and the various subsidy schemes.

In general most farmers should tick yes to question 20: ‘Do you want to register for any simple agricultural waste exemptions’. Included in these simple exemptions are activities such as burning branches or tree thinings.

Question 21 on the SAF relating to complex waste exemptions comes in four parts (A to D). The first exemption (number A) relates to spreading of reasonably small amounts (less than 50 tonnes/ha) of soil, compost, plant tissue or dredgings (for example from a ditch or sheugh) on land. It probably applies to a significant number of farms.

Exemption B applies to only a small number of farm businesses who are involved in the composting of biodegradable waste, while someone who ticks yes to Exemption C intends using construction and demolition waste from agricultural premises, perhaps to build a road or a new building.

The final exemption relates to where a lined biobed (an organic filter system) is used to deal with non-hazardous sprayer washings. For each of the four exemptions there are limits in place. For example, if someone wants to spread more than 50 tonnes of compost per hectare per year then they must register directly with the NI Environment Agency (NIEA).

The final waste-related question on the SAF (question 22) asks if you normally and regularly only carry waste from agricultural premises.

Most farmers should tick ‘Yes’ to this question.

A small number of farmers who collect controlled waste (household, commercial or industrial waste) from other premises must register through an upper tier process which involves a separate application to the NIEA.