Farmers left in limbo waiting for grant payments
© Tim Scrivener Many farm businesses could be left facing major cashflow concerns after the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) announced changes to repayment terms for some of its grants.
The RPA released an update on 6 February stating that its repayment terms for the Farming Equipment and Technology Fund would change from “within 30 working days” to “by 20 June 2025”, potentially meaning a delay of up to five months in extreme circumstances.
It also stated that farmers “may need to account for this if it will affect the cashflow of your business”.
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Grant funding from the RPA typically requires farmers to pay upfront for items through the scheme and then get reimbursed afterwards for a percentage of the total costs.
A decision to extend the repayment period was made by the RPA after it received “unprecedented demand”, with 35% of claims during the final two-week window of the scheme.
The RPA has been working to make payments earlier where possible and has paid out roughly 62% of claims to date.
An RPA spokesperson said: “‘We are working hard to ensure customers receive their payments as soon as possible and have already paid more than 60% of claims.
“Due to unprecedented demand, the payment window has been extended to process the volume of claims we received.”
Claims for capital grant agreements are processed within a 60-day period and the RPA has paid 96% of claims within this timeframe, with an average repayment period of 24 days.
Elderly farmer left in dark over grant payment
One 90-year-old mixed beef and sheep farmer from Gloucestershire has been left unsure over whether he will receive capital grant funding from the RPA for items including hedge laying on his farm.
An application for RPA capital funding was put in back in the autumn 2024.
He was then informed that the application would not be honoured, as the RPA had already used all of its allocated budget for the year.
His daughter, who supported him with the application process, says the RPA asked them to ring back in the new year.
When she called back, the call handler told her they were in the same boat as her and didn’t know when funding would become available again.
She said: “I’ve got no idea when this capital grant is going to be honoured, yet Dad, at the age of 90, has just cracked on with the hedge laying and as such he will not get any help with funding for all this work.
“I guess at the age of 90 you can’t afford to wait for the RPA to sort itself out.”
The Gloucestershire farm business was also impacted last year when a Farming Equipment and Technology Fund grant was pulled by the RPA after part of the application to renew some fencing fell through.
This was because the contractor’s quote to do fencing on very steep ground was prohibitive, leading to the total claim dropping below the £1,000 threshold.
“I had bought all this other stuff – a sheep race, feed bins, mats – and none of it received funding because without the fencing it came to just under £1,000,” she said.