Agreement close to shelving 2-metre field margin rules
Agreement close to shelving 2-metre field margin rules
By Isabel Davies
FARM minister Nick Brown has advised farmers to assume that field margins will be allowed to exceed the 2m maximum width proposed by the EU Commission.
Mr Brown has confirmed that he is close to an agreement which would allow farmers to treat hedges and other field margins in "broadly the same way as in previous years".
The commission ruled last year that farmers should reduce the size of their arable area payments claim if their field margins exceeded 2m.
Cutting back
MAFF originally agreed but after farmers starting cutting back hedges the ministry obtained a derogation from Brussels which gave the UK a reprieve for the year 2000.
In a statement released on Monday Mr Brown said farmers should maintain their existing patterns of field margins.
"Although some of the details have yet to be finalised, I am hopeful that we will shortly be able to secure a satisfactory outcome to this very difficult issue," he said.
"Our preliminary advice to farmers who are preparing their land for next years harvest is that they should do so on the basis that they are likely to be able to include hedges and other field margins in next years claims for area-linked payments in a similar way as in previous years."
Vicki Swales, agricultural policy officer for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, one of the groups which campaigned against the rules introduction last year, said the advice sounded as if farmers were no longer going to be forced into cutting back hedges because they felt they had no option.
"We will need to look at the detail but it does look as if we have got a solution," she said.
The NFU welcomed the guidance but stressed how important it was that farmers got definitive advice from the ministry as soon as possible.
Richard Butler, chairman of the NFUs cereals committee, said: "The advice from the minister that farmers should maintain their existing patterns of field margins is welcome. But farmers planning for next harvest need complete assurance that they will not fall foul of the draconian IACS penalty rules if they follow this advice."
"Farmers must have this assurance if we are to avoid adverse impacts on our countryside and its wildlife this autumn."
Minor changes?
Francis Mordaunt, of farm business consultants Andersons, agreed although the ministers statement did not rule out the possibility of there being some minor changes to rules this did not mean this would happen.
"I believe they are just being cautious and things are going to be the same," he said.