Capping

Walterp

Member
Location
Pembrokeshire
The CAP already provides for capping, but varies throughout the various countries in the UK.

These are the 2016 provisions:

1. Wales
- amounts between €150,000 and €200,000 will be reduced by 15%
- amounts between €200,000 and €250,000 will be reduced by 30%
- amounts between €250,000 and €300,000 will be reduced by 55%
- amounts over €300,000 will be reduced by 100%.

2. England
Amounts over €150,000 will be reduced by 5%.

3. Scotland
Amounts over €150,000 will be reduced by 5%.
There will also be a cap on basic payments at €500,000 after labour costs have been taken into account.

Northern Ireland
4. Amounts over €150,000 will be reduced by 100%.
 
many farms will become 3 claims father mother and son /daughter will each claim on a 1/3 of the farm
the larger estates may make more land available to rent thus collecting the same amount of money
the farm manager becomes a farmer on half the land and then contracts over the remaining land

restricting land owners from letting lad would be very unpopular with tenanted sector
 

P.O.T

Member
I think the main thing is that any money has to go to farmers that are actually farming. I think capping at around £50000 would be suitable, but possibly more money per person employed. I know alot of people against headage payments but seems a fairer way to reward people. Beef calf scheme in scotland has the right kind of idea, maybe more money per calf born in future. Only problem i guess with headage is sheep really, as people would run any old thing to get a payment which wouldnt be right.
 

yellowbelly

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
N.Lincs
many farms will become 3 claims father mother and son /daughter will each claim on a 1/3 of the farm
Whatever the system, there will always be people who 'play' it to their own advantage, but as the government already know how many holdings are claiming, surely they won't be so naive as to let them be split up to form multiple claims.

Oh, and by the way @yellow belly, may I compliment you on such a fine choice of user name:joyful: - in the two or so years I've been on here I think this is the first time I have replied to you about anything (I've had one or two of your alerts though:))
 

Hindsight

Member
Location
Lincolnshire
many farms will become 3 claims father mother and son /daughter will each claim on a 1/3 of the farm
the larger estates may make more land available to rent thus collecting the same amount of money
the farm manager becomes a farmer on half the land and then contracts over the remaining land

restricting land owners from letting lad would be very unpopular with tenanted sector


Will depend on how and if RPA (assuming it is still the administrative agency) enforces the Single Business rules - again assuming same applies post Brexit. These rules were designed to prevent multiple claims. Not really applied seriously in UK previously but might provide the means for Defra to prevent splitting of businesses to maximise individual claims.

Either way if serious capping is introduced there will be work for our triumvirate of professional friends the solicitors / land agents / accountants.
 

Hindsight

Member
Location
Lincolnshire
I see that Gove is to set out the maximum support payment in January.

What are everyone’s thoughts on what level this should be?

His main political concern post Brexit with ag support returned to UK control (take back control) is to prevent headlines in the Daily Wail and Torygraph along the lines of 'Sheik ......insert name receives £500k for his race horse stables' or 'The Duke of ........... insert appropriate cocaine fuelled aristocract receives £700k yet has evicted his sheperd'
 

Walterp

Member
Location
Pembrokeshire
Why should it be capped? The purpose of subsidies is cheap food on supermarket shelves? Why should the farmer producing more food below the cost of production be penalised?
The reason it is capped is to reflect the economic reality of economies of scale, and the political reality that underpins European taxpayers' willingness to fund it.
 
Last edited:

Walterp

Member
Location
Pembrokeshire
On a different point, I suspect that the OP is mistaken to believe that there will be any farm support payments to cap if/when the UK diverges from the CAP. The crucial question for UK farms isn't farm support (enjoy it while you may, it may be on the way out) but the applicability of the Customs Union.

Quite why some UK farmers salivate at the prospect of losing financial support mystifies me - the best suggestions I can arrive at is spite or myopia.

I have listened to farmers giving vent to their spite at others, often more enterprising or merely more fortunate than themselves, who qualify for large CAP payments; just as I have listened to other farmers showing complete ignorance about important agricultural policies. What I have yet to hear, despite looking for it, is any logical reason why a UK farmer would wish to end farm supports.

Even Minette Batters, famously pro 'leave', now accepts that the UK farm sector has serious difficulties in prospect - her prediction (ceteris paribus) is that 75% of UK farms in some sectors (baa, moo) will go out of business for all practical purposes.

I think that my initial reaction (helpfully recorded for posterity in the FG letters section) is that English farmers have put their ideological preferences ahead of their business interests.
 
Will depend on how and if RPA (assuming it is still the administrative agency) enforces the Single Business rules - again assuming same applies post Brexit. These rules were designed to prevent multiple claims. Not really applied seriously in UK previously but might provide the means for Defra to prevent splitting of businesses to maximise individual claims.

Either way if serious capping is introduced there will be work for our triumvirate of professional friends the solicitors / land agents / accountants.


I agree but will they stop landowners letting land to a tenant who was the farm manager or wife or son and they then claim on their behalf
they cannot stop machinery and labour sharing or contractors doing work for claimants

most farms I know have potential to divide the land between partners and managers even the big estates have brother sister and father who are beneficiary of the trust with a farm manager the land let to one farm business
this could become 4 tenant farms with a machinery sharing contract the larger estates would find it easy to do as they have a number of farm building sites

the large farming cos who farm by fbt would also contract farm with individual land owners
 
On a different point, I suspect that the OP is mistaken to believe that there will be any farm support payments to cap if/when the UK diverges from the CAP. The crucial question for UK farms isn't farm support (enjoy it while you may, it may be on the way out) but the applicability of the Customs Union.

Quite why some UK farmers salivate at the prospect of losing financial support mystifies me - the best suggestions I can arrive at is spite or myopia.

I have listened to farmers giving vent to their spite at others, often more enterprising or merely more fortunate than themselves, who qualify for large CAP payments; just as I have listened to other farmers showing complete ignorance about important agricultural policies. What I have yet to hear, despite looking for it, is any logical reason why a UK farmer would wish to end farm supports.

Even Minette Batters, famously pro 'leave', now accepts that the UK farm sector has serious difficulties in prospect - her prediction (ceteris paribus) is that 75% of UK farms in some sectors (baa, moo) will go out of business for all practical purposes.

I think that my initial reaction (helpfully recorded for posterity in the FG letters section) is that English farmers have put their ideological preferences ahead of their business interests.

I would agree how will a prime minister stand up in the house and say they will pay land owners area payment they cannot defend that with education or the health service needs

capping will be a way to justify the continued payments not linked to stewardship and the environment

the question is at what level will the cap be

ray macsharry originally proposed under 200 acres in the 1990s crashed the price of land then from £2000 to £1000 and acre some land took 5 years to sell
 

Hindsight

Member
Location
Lincolnshire
I agree but will they stop landowners letting land to a tenant who was the farm manager or wife or son and they then claim on their behalf
they cannot stop machinery and labour sharing or contractors doing work for claimants

most farms I know have potential to divide the land between partners and managers even the big estates have brother sister and father who are beneficiary of the trust with a farm manager the land let to one farm business
this could become 4 tenant farms with a machinery sharing contract the larger estates would find it easy to do as they have a number of farm building sites

the large farming cos who farm by fbt would also contract farm with individual land owners

Yep, agree with your comments.

As I said in earlier post the initial beneficiaries of such a change will be Bidwells / Strutt&Parker / Roythornes / Burgess Salmon et al.

Regards
 

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