Pressure to ease red tape burden on farmers

The Farming Regulation Task Force, set up last year by farming Minister Jim Paice to investigate excessive red tape in farming – which costs the industry an estimated £10bn annually – published its conclusions yesterday and spelt out an action plan to create “an entirely new system of regulation” for the sector.

Included in the taskforce’s 214 recommendations to the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) are that Ministers begin to trust the farmers more, and suggestions that industry experts are recruited into the department to assist with policy formation and that politicians engage more fully with the industry when forming policy.

A radical shake up of the planning system is recommended to recognise the importance of food production and to make it much easier for farmers to build on their land.

Elsewhere it said the myriad farm inspections which farmers must undergo throughout the year need to simplified, reduced in number and organised at times more convenient to the farm’s business requirements, for example not during lambing times.

Farmers who demonstrate good environmental practice are also likely to receive fewer inspections under what the task force termed “earned recognition”.

The subsidy system could be revamped, with the task force recommending that the Government simplify the Single Payment Scheme by scrapping payments to those owning less than five hectares of land.

The paperwork that farmers need to fill in should be massively simplified and increasingly handled online it said, suggesting that all cattle movement documents should be done via the internet.

To facilitate this, it states the Government must commit to ensuring broadband access across the entire country and provide information technology training for farmers as “a priority”.

The report contains some stinging criticisms of the current regulations, in particular calling rules for livestock movement “complex and obstructive to livestock production”.

Task force chairman Richard Macdonald said: “We have listened to what farmers and food producers have to say about how regulations and processes could be improved without reducing standards.

“We’ve also looked at the big picture and recommend a new approach to regulation based on trust, responsibility and partnership between Government and industry.

“Our recommendations won’t all be easy but they are credible and, I believe, now is the time for change.

The farming and food processing industries need to contribute to economic recovery and produce more food in a sustainable and safe way.

“To make this happen, the Government needs to change the way it deals with them.

“By accepting our recommendations Defra will show that it is prepared to do this.

“It is now for Defra, its agencies and delivery partners, and industry to respond to the challenge.”

The report also advocates altering the benefit system to allow unemployed people to do seasonal work on farms such as at harvest time.

As well as acknowledging food production, planning officials should respond to applications within a maximum of 42 days, the task force said. It recommends planners at local authorities be given training on the food and farming industry to improve their knowledge base.

Another proposal is that all applications for agricultural buildings of less than 465 square metres in size be allowed without prior notification and buildings under 1,500 square metres be allowed without full planning permission.

It advises that regulators need to stop asking for the same information twice and that there should be as few a farm inspections “as is needed to maintain standards”.

Government should also check local authorities are not carrying out the same inspection and farm inspectors told to be less heavy-handed so as to combat what it described as a climate of “guilt”.

Mr Paice said work would begin immediately to institute some of the recommendations while a full response to the report is due in early 2012. He also announced a Strategic Regulatory Scrutiny Panel, tasked with challenging and advising Defra on the way “we think about regulation”.

He said: “We have already identified a number of areas from the report where we can take immediate action, such as reducing the paperwork required under Nitrate Re gulations and moving towards reporting all pig and cattle movement online.

“In the longer-term my priority will be to cut the unnecessary paperwork that farmers and food producers have to deal with and, wherever possible, move remaining paperwork online.”

The task force recommendations drew broad praise from the country’s farming leaders.

National Farmers’ Union president Peter Kendall said: “The next step must be to regulate better, to free our farmers from the red tape that stifles their capabilities and impacts on their competitiveness. And above all to enable us to do what we are being called on to do: produce more and impact less.”

The Country Land and Business Association deputy president Harry Cotterell said: “This should go a long way towards reducing the burden of regulation on farmers and land managers. The proposals relating to the planning system are also good news and should do much to encourage land-based business to flourish.”

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