NI Delivers on BPS

The Agriculture Minister for Northern Ireland, Michelle O’Neill, has announced that her department has kept its promise and has delivered 95% of Basic Payment Scheme money by the end of December.  This equals last year’s Single Payment record and includes payments to over 1,700 farms which have been inspected this year.  The Minister went on to say that this performance had been made possible by the high number of claims which had been made using the on-line application process and the hard work of the DARD staff.  Payments include the Basic Payment, Greening Payment and Young Farmer’s Payment where a successful application has been made. This is in stark contrast to other areas of the UK which are along way from their targets reached in previous year’s. and in England and Scotland it is partly due to the failures of the on-line application process.