More CAP Updates from Scotland

Some additional detail on CAP reform in Scotland has emerged.  All administrations were required to submit their decisions on Basic Payment Scheme implementation to the EU by the start of August.  As part of this, the Scottish Government has clarified two areas of the BPS – EFA weightings and coupled payments. 

On coupled payments there has been a subtle change in the system of beef payments.  This was not made particularly clear from the Scot Gov announcement, but is outlined in supporting documents.  There will be two stand-alone beef schemes; a mainland one taking 7.25% of BPS funds, and a separate island scheme (1.25% of funds).  Banding of payments rates has not been allowed by the EU.  Therefore, the plan outlined in June (see Bulletin 06(14)) of paying double the rate on the first 10 calves has been abandoned.  There will be a flat-rate ofaround €100 per calf (say £80) on the mainland, rising to €160 per calf for island producers.

The upland sheep scheme, operating on the least productive rough grazing land (Region 3), will comprise 1.5% of the budget.  This will pay around €100 per ewe hogg.  Detailed scheme rules are not yet available, but we are assuming that these are replacement animals intended for breeding.  The Government has been quoted that since hoggs typically make up a quarter of the flock, this equates to a payment of €25 per ewe.  It is not clear to us why hoggs (aka ewe lambs) have been targeted rather than breeding ewes.  it seems to open up the possibility of people ‘playing the system’ by running large numbers of young female sheep.  A ‘baseline’ of stock numbers on farm in 2011 applies to all the coupled payments.  Again, details are sparse, but this implies to us, some kind of scalebacks in payments if future claims exceed these thresholds.   

Adding all the coupled payments together, it can be seen that 10% of the Scottish BPS budget is going in this direction.  Going above the 8% limit has been possible after the EU Commission confirmed that Scotland is able to use some of the UK’s unused coupling allocation. 

The other area where more detail is available is on Ecological Focus Areas (EFAs) under Greening.  The weighting factors have been agreed for the five types of land eligible towards the EFA requirement in Scotland;

• Fallow land – mandatory weighting 1
• Catch Crops – mandatory weighting 0.3
• Nitrogen Fixing Crops – mandatory weighting 0.7
• Field Margins – weighting 1.5
• Buffer Strips (along watercourses) – weighting 1.5

In fact, all these are simply the default weightings contained in the EU legislation.  The only decision to be made was on field margins / buffer strips as the ‘positive’ weighting of 1.5 could have been reduced.  This has not happened.  The first three EFA land types are simply calculated on a area basis.  Both field margins and buffer strips have a conversion factor – for every 1m run of these features 6m² of area is assumed.  This is then multiplied by the weighting factor of 1.5 to get to an EFA area of 9m². 

Despite this new information being released the detailed management prescriptions are still required.  According to notes from the stakeholder meetings (see http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/farmingrural/Agriculture/CAP/regulations) the deadline for communicating these to the EU Commission is not until 1st October.  Therefore, it may be some time before all becomes clear.  However enough is now known for farmers to be calculating their Greening requirements in most cases.  Remember plantings this autumn must be compliant.