More than a third of farmers receive payments on first day

Elizabeth Truss, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Picture: Jonathan Gawthorpe.

After the abandonment of an online-only application process for the European payments earlier in the year, the farming community has been nervous about the consequences for the payments schedule.

Farming Minister George Eustice, speaking in Hexham last month, said the focus was on trying to get payments out as quickly as possible and that 800 people had been working on processing applications so that the majority of payments would still be paid to farmers in December.

Lack of cohesion led to farm payments IT struggle

Phone fraudsters may prey on farmers’ payments

EU payments expected to be on time, Defra reports

And today, the RPA said those paid on the opening day of the payments window represent at least 38 per cent of all those who submitted a claim.

Environment Secretary Elizabeth Truss said: “We understand the importance of these payments to our hard-working farmers and I’m pleased to confirm that over a third of the total 88,000 claimants will see their Basic Payment Scheme money going into their bank accounts from today, the opening day of the payment window.

“After making dairy support payments a fortnight ahead of schedule, the RPA has now pulled out all the stops to get BPS payments underway. I know RPA staff are continuing to work flat out to ensure the agency meets its commitment to pay the majority of farmers by the end of this month and the vast majority by the end of January.”

Miss Truss added: “We recognise low global prices have made it a tough year for farmers. As well as ensuring prompt payments, we are working to build the long-term resilience of the industry, including introducing a fairer tax system, pushing for clearer labelling of British dairy products, setting up a futures market for dairy and working with the industry to open up new export markets.”

The RPA said it has also made strong progress on issuing one-off EU support payments to dairy farmers, with some £21million having now been shared between almost 11,000 dairy farmers in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. In total, each English dairy farmer is expected, on average, to receive around £1,800 to help ease the cash crisis caused by low dairy prices.

The average UK farm gate milk price was 24.23 pence per litre (ppl) in October - according to the latest figures published by AHDB Dairy - compared to 29.66ppl a year earlier.

To make it easier for shoppers to choose to support British dairy farmers, The Yorkshire Post’s Clearly British campaign is calling on retailers, food processors and the wider food industry to clearly label all dairy products to show in which country their ingredients are from.

To sign our campaign petition, click here.