Farming fury

Having already been left out of pocket by the Rural Payments Agency fiasco, farmers are now being denied vital resources because of easily avoidable mistakes.

To make matters worse, concerns about the bad financial management were raised by the farmers themselves, but change was not forthcoming on the part of a Whitehall department which assumed, arrogantly and wrongly, that it was faultless.

The cost is a £23m bill at a time when the rural economy is coming to terms with the most severe cuts to public spending in living memory.

At the centre of this avoidable controversy is a scheme that was supposed to help bring money into fruit or vegetable production.

The Producer Organisations are co-operatives of farmers who were encouraged to pool their resources to enhance their business, and the big success story was English strawberry production which increased markedly.

However, the European Commission said that the UK had been “weak and deficient” in running the scheme. The National Farmers’ Union is understandably frustrated as Defra, belatedly and finally, plays catch-up.

Despite this positive step, there are still worrying signs. The Whitehall department’s spokeswoman appeared to be trying to justify their shambolic efforts by blaming the system – describing the regulations as “complex”.

They may well be – but surely that is why senior civil servants are earning six figure salaries? Not only are they paid to understand complex European legislation, but to extract the maximum benefits for Britain. For how long does such incompetence have to be tolerated?