Press Release - Payment of 2014 SFP certain to be delayed well into 2015

Payment of 2014 SFP certain to be delayed well into 2015.

The National Beef Association has said farmers, and their advisors, should anticipate a late conclusion to the current round of CAP reform negotiations and significant delays in the arrival of their 2014 SFP – which ought to be paid in December that same year.

“Unfortunately there is every likelihood it will not,” explained NBA director, Kim Haywood.  “Our advice to farmers across the UK is to expect cash flow interruptions in the early part of 2015, and anticipate what this could mean to the financing of farm improvements, tax bills, or loan payments, outstanding at the time, and begin to make plans to ease the inevitable problems that a nationwide delay in the receipt of direct payments from their governments would create.”

The extension of CAP reform discussion to 27 EU countries and the involvement, for the first time, of the European Parliament now make it likely that the new CAP settlement, and it’s financing, may not be finalised until March 2015 instead of sometime in 2014.

On top of that all UK governments will then have to interpret the EU package before deciding, after consultation with farm organisations and other stakeholders, how their preferred national policies can be slotted into the new CAP framework.

“The additional complications to negotiations in Brussels created by a near doubling of the number of participating EU countries and the participation, for the first time, of a European Parliament whose MEP’s are keen to stamp their own view on the CAP programme, means an early settlement is impossible,” said Ms Haywood.

“And if the challenge from the European Parliament is, as expected, time consuming and vigorous then completion may be delayed into 2014.”

“Only then can the tortuous process of interpretation, positioning, consultation, and implementation at individual Members State level begin and it is difficult to believe this will be completed any quicker after the completion of the current CAP round than it has been in the past.”

“A new SFP application system will then have to be designed for England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland as a result of the inclusion of greening requirements and other qualification details, and new computer systems cannot be ordered, or installed, until the RPA and other agencies understand exactly what their new computers are required to do.”

“No one should be surprised by these commonsense conclusions but it is worth reminding farmers of what will lie ahead. The framework for the new CAP budget, which at present looks like being fixed at 2013 levels but without being inflation proofed, has still to be finalised.”

“And first sight of the Commission’s policy proposals for the new CAP, which will have to undergo an unusually tortuous approval process, is not expected until October,” Ms Haywood added.

For more information contact:
Kim Haywood, NBA director.  Tel. 0131 336 1754/07967 698936