Memorandum submitted by John Newling (RAS
29)
1. I wish to bring to the attention of the
EFRA committee the unnecessarily complicated way that the FVP
regulations area affecting the running of the Single Farm Payment
Scheme and the resulting extra work load involved by ourselves
as the farmer landowner and the specialist vegetable grower who
hires land from us each year on a rotational basis. Under the
old IACS regime the vegetable grower was not involved in any way
with subsidies paid to us as farmers so why involve him now. In
our case and many others in this district the new system has incurred
considerable extra expense and time as we have had to employ the
services of a professional advisor and a lawyer to make watertight
agreements between ourselves and the hirer so that when the hirer
eventually gets the SFP on the hired land he will pass on to us
the full amount paid on that land. There is also the potential
risk that if the hirer were to go "bust" we may get
none of the money due to us on that land.
2. It is my opinion that the vegetable part
of the FVP should be taken out of the SFP system all together,
thereby making life simpler for all of those involved and also
the staff at DEFRA who are suffering under great strain to try
to make a near impossible system work properly. It would also
save money!! Think of that!!
3. I am sure that you will receive lots
of letters from all types of farmers in response to your article
in the Farmers Weekly 19 May which will cover all the anomalies
occurring in the SFP system as a whole. However I sincerely hope
my points will be put before Mr Michael Jack and his committee.
4. You ask for my details; I have farmed
the Silverwood Farm since 1954 growing potatoes, sugar beet, vining
peas, daffodils and wheat. No livestock since 1983. My son now
runs the farm but I still am very interested in its well being.
The farms now run to 620 acres with a further 166 acres contract
farmed for a near neighbour. You may like to know that I have
taken Farmers Weekly ever since you absorbed Farmer and Stockbreeder,
I seem to remember that Travers Legge was Editor at that time.
May 2006
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