Time for farmers to get ready for claims process
With the application period for completing 2019 Basic Payment (BPS) claims fast approaching, we are urging farmers and land managers to get prepared now.
The deadline for applications will be Wednesday, May 15. In Wales, the Welsh BPS 2019 single application form will be available on Rural Payment Wales Online from Tuesday, March 5 and we are hoping that the Rural Payments Agency will make functionality for English claims available around the same time.
Now is the time to make sure greening elements can be met when completing your 2019 application. For crop diversification rules you need to meet the minimum cropping requirements based on the area of arable land and Ecological Focus Areas need to be in place (equivalent to five per cent of arable area). Different EFA features have different weighting factors for calculating EFAs.
At the time of writing, the majority of applicants will have been paid their 2018 Basic Payment and 2018 English Claim Statements are being issued. You must check these claim statements carefully, particularly on the back of remote sensing work to ensure 2018 payments are correct. Also check the number of entitlements carefully.
If any data is found to be incorrect then raise the issue immediately with RPA to get in the queue for the post payment amendment process. The RPA confirmed that 93.4 per cent of claimants were paid by end of December 2018.
If you haven’t been paid yet Defra has said that claimants not paid by the end of March will get a bridging payment worth 75 per cent of their claim.
In England the RPA is undertaking a Proactive Land Change Detection mapping programme, therefore the rural payments system will start to generate messages informing farmers of mapping changes. These should be checked carefully to ensure that the mapping updates are correct. If you need to make amendments this can be done using an RLE1 Form as in England there is still no electronic method of making mapping updates.
The RPA is intending to make online land and entitlement transfer functionality available by the end of January so you can prepare in advance for submitting transfers of land and/or entitlements if you have sold or let any land.
Sarah Reece, partner with Berrys at Shrewsbury
