Farmers urged to get their applications in as window for farm funding opens

By Rob Blair, Partner, and ARA specialist

Farmers and landowners can now make applications for funding under a number of schemes. The application window for the Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) and the claim window for existing Countryside Stewardship (CS) revenue and Environmental Stewardship (ES) agreements opened earlier this month.

What is the Basic Payment Scheme (BPS)?

The Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) is a scheme that provides direct payments to farmers in the European Union (EU) to support their income. In the UK, these payments are made by the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) to farmers who meet certain eligibility criteria.

What is changing with the BPS payment cycle?

Last year, BPS advance payments were made in the summer to help farmers with their cash flow, with balance payments made from December. This change to the BPS payment cycle will continue, and this year, advance payments of around 50% of the total will be made from the start of August 2023.

What is replacing the BPS payments?

The BPS payments are being phased out through to 2027 as the government introduces the Environmental Land Management schemes (ELMS).

As part of this process, the BPS will be replaced with delinked payments based on a farmer’s average BPS payments for the 2020 to 2022 scheme years. The payments will be reduced each year as they are phased out.

Is there any change to the cross-compliance requirements?

Cross compliance will end after the 2023 scheme year and will not apply to delinked payments.

What is the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) offering for the claim process for Countryside Stewardship (CS)?

For 2023, the RPA has supplemented the existing online claim process for CS with an annual declaration option in cases where no changes are required.

This will be available in the Rural Payments service, with farmers able to generate and submit an automated revenue claim without needing to complete each section of the claim form.

What is the deadline to submit a claim or annual declaration for CS and ES?

All farmers must submit a claim or annual declaration for CS and ES to receive payment for works carried out in 2023. Farmers are encouraged to submit their applications and claims as soon as possible to ensure that no one misses out.

Want to know more about environmental payment schemes. See how we can help you, today.