Tag Archives: Common Agricultural Policy

British farmers need to keep up to speed on CAP reform

Farm business advisors at Strutt & Parker have warned UK farmers to continue to be aware of proposed changes to the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) even as the UK prepares for Brexit.

The firm recently highlighted some of the key proposed changes to the CAP for 2021 to 2027 in a briefing paper published on its website. Amongst the key proposals is ‘greater power for Member States to design their own policies, under both Pillars 1 and 2’ which will see ‘each country producing a ‘CAP Strategic Plan’, which sets out how it will meet nine EU-wide objectives.’

In terms of funding, direct payments will be capped at €100,000 (£87,000) and payments above €60,000 will be subject to regression reductions. Overall the budget for Pillar 1 payments will see an 11 per cent reduction in real terms, while Pillar 2 will see a cut of 27 per cent.

Chair of Strutt & Parker’s Farm Research Group, George Chichester said, “These changes are important to the UK as it is still unclear when a British farming policy will apply from, given major uncertainties remaining in the UK-EU withdrawal negotiations, and so we may have to comply with these rules until our British policy is ready.”

The post British farmers need to keep up to speed on CAP reform appeared first on Hort News on 9 July 2018.

Rural Payments Agency confirms BPS 2017

The Government has claimed that British farmers will see a boost in basic payments this year after Farming Minister George Eustice increased entitlement values and greening rates.

Coupled with the favourable BPS exchange rate (of €1 to £0.8947) which was confirmed in September, basic payments will be worth 25% more on average this year, compared to 2015.

Mr Eustice commented, “Exchange rate changes since the decision to leave the EU have led to a recovery in many farming sectors and BPS payments this year will be 25% higher than in 2015.”

The RPA has published this year’s BPS rates and says the money will be in farmer’s bank accounts from 1 December. Under the Basic Payment Scheme (BPS), farmers need to hold an entitlement for every hectare of eligible land they are claiming on. The size of farmers’ payments will depend on how many entitlements they use, supported by eligible land and the value of those entitlements. The greening part of payments will be calculated by taking the number of entitlements that they have used with eligible land to claim payment and multiplying it by the greening value. Entitlement values of non-Severely Disadvantaged Areas for 2017 are €180.46 with a greening rate of €77.69.

Photo Caption: Farming Minister George Eustice.

Photo Credit: Wikimedia

 

The post Rural Payments Agency confirms BPS 2017 appeared first on Hort News on 22 November 2017.