Helping You with Agricultural Compliance

It’s a well known fact that life without the Single Farm Payment would be very difficult indeed for the vast majority of farmers, claims Shropshire arable farmer Nick Tilt.

“The risking of losing our payment is too high and would be so devastating that we decided to bring on board CXCS to make sure we were always on the ball if an inspection should arise”

Click to read more about how we helped Nick.

"By now, only Martians will not know about Cross Compliance, the Single Farm Payment and CAP Reform" says Charles Mayson of Cross Compliance Solutions. "They are all of a piece and whether you see them as pensions for farmers or as vital aids to agriculture their importance is undeniably huge. The average Single Farm Payment is £30,000 and that sum is the single most stable item in farm budgets. Beef and wheat prices may come and go, but that payment remains."

"That is - if it’s not held up or deducted! Farmers who breach Cross Compliance Regs not only risk a 5% deduction; they may also introduce a very unwelcome delay to ”payday” informs Charles. " December can be a long month if you are in dispute with the RPA over a minor breach. We have known of some spectacular delays going back over several seasons, involving a lot of fruitless argument with a case officer who gets switched just as you are getting somewhere. Now that the NVZ rules are going to be administered by RPA officers instead of the Environment Agency life is going to be different because of the shorter notice that they apply to inspections." Charles says " It is perfectly possible that farmers may now get only an overnight phone call to warn of an inspection next morning."

“Hello, this is the RPA, it’s a message for Mr Jones, timed at 5pm. Will call at 9 in the morning, please have your SPR book ready”.

"This is in stark contrast to the EA, who used to give up to a fortnight’s warning" informs Charles. " It remains to be seen how rigorous the inspections will be – probably a lot will depend on individual officers, however, inspectors also get inspected; not just farmers. European rules require a convincing inspection process to ensure the survival of our payment system – and this means that your inspector will have to deliver a robust inquiry into farm records and practices. We have attended many inspections now, more perhaps than any other firm, and have learnt how the inspections work. Records of fertiliser and manures must be on hand, the SPR book must be up to date, the manure storage and spreading must protect watercourses both on and off the farm. There is much more and there have been some recent changes. Everybody knows about those now. Apart from those Martians!"