Extension urged to deadline for farm payments

The Rural Payments Agency, tasked with distributing Single Farm Payment (SFP) cheques to all UK farmers, has endured further problems in recent weeks after it was revealed that errors in the mapping out of how much land each UK farmer runs could lead to delays in payments.

Nearly one in three farmers in Britain, some 33,000 farmers and growers, had some missing data on their application sheets for SFP. This led to the Royal Institute of Agricultural Consultants (RIAC), a group of influential farming and agricultural business leaders, to call for an extension to this year's deadline.

However, the request is unlikely to be successful as the agency points out that the deadline is set by the European Union and not itself.

RIAC chief executive Anthony Hyde, said he had written the letter to voice the "continued frustration" of his organisation's members who he said were under "huge stress and financial hardship being caused by the delays in payments".

Mr Hyde said that he felt "a lack of real understanding" about farming within the agency was responsible for many of its problems.

He goes on to say: "We need action now if we are to prevent another 12 months of chaos and if that action means extending deadlines this May and June then that action must be taken.

"Action taken for compassionate reasons could just begin to restore a vestige of credibility in RPA and that must be worth a try."

A spokeswoman for the agency said: "As long as the RPA receives the 2010 application form by midnight on May 17, the farmer can then notify us, in writing, of any amendments to land parcels or add new land parcels up to midnight on June 1 without penalty."

She added that the agency had written to all 33,000 farmers affected by the missing information, advising them to check their form carefully and said it had printed an arrow on their form to point out precisely where the gap was.