Mid Tier Offers

[Punch]

Now if you've just seen that video, it's a Bit worrying really isn't it?
Talk about big brother!

Last June, RPA sent several inspectors round lots of farms in South Warwickshire to check what was growing in each and every field. They turned up unannounced and said the reason was that the satellite was unable to distinguish what crop was being grown to check against what the farmers had entered in their 2016 BPS forms.
Presumably because the weather was so bad and it was too cloudy when the satellite was overhead.

None of these farmers, including us have received their BPS payment yet!

It sort of proves the point that RPA is using SITI Agri, doesn't it?

Why oh why is it taking so long for the inspectors reports to confirm the Farmers crops so that we can be paid?


Next time you hear that the NE computers are not working properly, maybe it is because of SITI Agri?

Still doing checks. In our village we have had 2 inspectors checking individual fields in the last 10 days. All for 2016 BPS but will also impact any mid teir applications as NE use RPA data. As I understand if you have an BPS issue that needs dealing with first before NE will progress.

 

[Two Tone]

Still doing checks. In our village we have had 2 inspectors checking individual fields in the last 10 days. All for 2016 BPS but will also impact any mid teir applications as NE use RPA data. As I understand if you have an BPS issue that needs dealing with first before NE will progress.

Yes, that is right.
Having put a bomb under NE's arse, my Mid Tier agent suggested that there could be a mapping issue that needs sorting with RPA before NE can do anything.

So I rang RPA armed with another bomb! Fortunately, because as Manager here, I act as agent to this farm and another farm next door that I share farm, RPA offered me a Case Worker to deal with why we haven't got our 2016 BPS yet.

She telephoned me the next day to advise that our BPS claim has moved from Validation to Finance and that we will be paid in the next 10 days. Finance always issue payments on a Thursday to reach your bank account the following Tuesday.

I mentioned that we have a pending application for Mid Tier with NE and were concerned that we might have a mapping issue that is holding things up.

She told me that we cannot have any mapping issues. Because if we did, RPA would not have moved our BPS claim forward to Finance.

 

[Punch]

Hope you payment comes through. We suspect we might get 75% in April.

 

[Feldspar]

Yes, that is right.
Having put a bomb under NE's arse, my Mid Tier agent suggested that there could be a mapping issue that needs sorting with RPA before NE can do anything.

So I rang RPA armed with another bomb! Fortunately, because as Manager here, I act as agent to this farm and another farm next door that I share farm, RPA offered me a Case Worker to deal with why we haven't got our 2016 BPS yet.

She telephoned me the next day to advise that our BPS claim has moved from Validation to Finance and that we will be paid in the next 10 days. Finance always issue payments on a Thursday to reach your bank account the following Tuesday.

I mentioned that we have a pending application for Mid Tier with NE and were concerned that we might have a mapping issue that is holding things up.

She told me that we cannot have any mapping issues. Because if we did, RPA would not have moved our BPS claim forward to Finance.

We were paid for our BPS whilst we still had outstanding mapping issues. We still had one recently bought paid field not appearing on the system at the time we were paid.

Pleased to hear nonetheless that you are managed to drive a certain amount of progress.

 

[Two Tone]

Hope you payment comes through. We suspect we might get 75% in April.

BIG Hint!

Become an Agent. You might have to be an Agent for 2 holdings. In which case do so for another farmer friend and make him a (joint) Agent for your holding.

That way, RPA must offer you a Case Worker and things will start to move forward with your (and if necessary, your farmer friends) BPS Claim.

RPA made me an agent because they will no longer accept me as Farm Manager to be able to alter anything on-line to our BPS application. So they had to change my status to Agent. Fortunately I was already Agent for the owner of the block of land I share farm with (He gets all the BPS!).

I think you have to be Agent for 2 Farms before they will assign you a Case Worker.

 

[Feldspar]

BIG Hint!

Become an Agent. You might have to be an Agent for 2 holdings. In which case do so for another farmer friend and make him a (joint) Agent for your holding.

That way, RPA must offer you a Case Worker and things will start to move forward with your (and if necessary, your farmer friends) BPS Claim.

RPA made me an agent because they will no longer accept me as Farm Manager to be able to alter anything on-line to our BPS application. So they had to change my status to Agent. Fortunately I was already Agent for the owner of the block of land I share farm with (He gets all the BPS!).

I think you have to be Agent for 2 Farms before they will assign you a Case Worker.

Useful tip. I could do that easily actually given the structure of our business. However, we have our BPS, maps are OK at the moment and Mid Tier offer has come, so I'm not too worried about it at present!

 

[Flat 10]

BIG Hint!

Become an Agent. You might have to be an Agent for 2 holdings. In which case do so for another farmer friend and make him a (joint) Agent for your holding.

That way, RPA must offer you a Case Worker and things will start to move forward with your (and if necessary, your farmer friends) BPS Claim.

RPA made me an agent because they will no longer accept me as Farm Manager to be able to alter anything on-line to our BPS application. So they had to change my status to Agent. Fortunately I was already Agent for the owner of the block of land I share farm with (He gets all the BPS!).

I think you have to be Agent for 2 Farms before they will assign you a Case Worker.

If that's true(and I'm not certain it is) its absolutely disgraceful. Why should an agent get a caseworker and not a farmer? Jobs for the boys?

 

[Two Tone]

If that's true(and I'm not certain it is) its absolutely disgraceful. Why should an agent get a caseworker and not a farmer? Jobs for the boys?

I agree totally.

Jobs for the agent boys taking a percentage of the farmers money!

I imagine it is thought that as and agent will be dealing with a bunch of claimants, RPA can deal with less people than a load of individual farmers and so many phone calls to answer.

My neighbour uses an agent and RPA will only deal with that agent on the neighbours behalf. My neighbour hasn't been paid yet and the agent will charge Gawd knows what every time he calls RPA on his behalf.

The thing is though, that out of 94 claimants, this agent only has 2 unpaid ones. Is this because RPA thinks that an agent is less likely to make a mistake and/or is more likely to understand the system than an individual farmer? In other words, do they do less checking on claimants who use agents?

My advice is not to use an agent unless that agent is yourself. Milk the system, but get the answers you need.

BPS isn't rocket science. Most farmers should be perfectly capable of doing their own claims. Especially now that the online system doesn't allow you to make calculation mistakes and warns you if you haven't got enough EFA.

 

[Feldspar]

I agree totally.

Jobs for the agent boys taking a percentage of the farmers money!

I imagine it is thought that as and agent will be dealing with a bunch of claimants, RPA can deal with less people than a load of individual farmers and so many phone calls to answer.

My neighbour uses an agent and RPA will only deal with that agent on the neighbours behalf. My neighbour hasn't been paid yet and the agent will charge Gawd knows what every time he calls RPA on his behalf.

The thing is though, that out of 94 claimants, this agent only has 2 unpaid ones. Is this because RPA thinks that an agent is less likely to make a mistake and/or is more likely to understand the system than an individual farmer? In other words, do they do less checking on claimants who use agents?

My advice is not to use an agent unless that agent is yourself. Milk the system, but get the answers you need.

BPS isn't rocket science. Most farmers should be perfectly capable of doing their own claims. Especially now that the online system doesn't allow you to make calculation mistakes and warns you if you haven't got enough EFA.

I do anything like BPS, ELS and Mid-Tier myself. I may not be as good with spanners as most people, so I might as well play to my strengths! No agent could ever know our farm as well as we do, and so I think we can do a much better job, whilst avoiding a lot of back and forth between farmer and agent which all costs £££. That said, we do have regular chats with agent types to make sure we're not missing out on the latest scheme / wheeze. There's a lot that happens which most farmers fail to take advantage of. Whole new thing on ECO funding for rental properties I'd never heard of until last month.

I have a friend who works in agri-business for Savills. They don't just get their own agent, they get direct access to the RPA's editing software if I understand correctly. I.e. the software that almost became available to everyone is the level of access they have. So they have much more direct access than individual farmers.

 

[Two Tone]

I do anything like BPS, ELS and Mid-Tier myself. I may not be as good with spanners as most people, so I might as well play to my strengths! No agent could ever know our farm as well as we do, and so I think we can do a much better job, whilst avoiding a lot of back and forth between farmer and agent which all costs £££. That said, we do have regular chats with agent types to make sure we're not missing out on the latest scheme / wheeze. There's a lot that happens which most farmers fail to take advantage of. Whole new thing on ECO funding for rental properties I'd never heard of until last month.

I have a friend who works in agri-business for Savills. They don't just get their own agent, they get direct access to the RPA's editing software if I understand correctly. I.e. the software that almost became available to everyone is the level of access they have. So they have much more direct access than individual farmers.

Must admit I did struggle with our Mid Tier application. Frontier own Kings Seeds. Kings have a guy who used to work for NE and understands the system. Better in fact than NE do themselves. So I used him.

Have to say that there is no way we could have realised and entered an application that would earn us anything like as much as we would have without his help.

 

[Flat 10]

I agree totally.

Jobs for the agent boys taking a percentage of the farmers money!

I imagine it is thought that as and agent will be dealing with a bunch of claimants, RPA can deal with less people than a load of individual farmers and so many phone calls to answer.

My neighbour uses an agent and RPA will only deal with that agent on the neighbours behalf. My neighbour hasn't been paid yet and the agent will charge Gawd knows what every time he calls RPA on his behalf.

The thing is though, that out of 94 claimants, this agent only has 2 unpaid ones. Is this because RPA thinks that an agent is less likely to make a mistake and/or is more likely to understand the system than an individual farmer? In other words, do they do less checking on claimants who use agents?

My advice is not to use an agent unless that agent is yourself. Milk the system, but get the answers you need.

BPS isn't rocket science. Most farmers should be perfectly capable of doing their own claims. Especially now that the online system doesn't allow you to make calculation mistakes and warns you if you haven't got enough EFA.

Problem is they treat me like an idiot for making errors which they in fact mad (edit made )themselves!

 

[Feldspar]

Must admit I did struggle with our Mid Tier application. Frontier own Kings Seeds. Kings have a guy who used to work for NE and understands the system. Better in fact than NE do themselves. So I used him.

Have to say that there is no way we could have realised and entered an application that would earn us anything like as much as we would have without his help.

Yes, I suppose it works both ways. Can you give an example of what options he chose that you wouldn't have thought of?

 

[Two Tone]

Problem is they treat me like an idiot for making errors which they in fact mad themselves!

NE tried that with me. Which prompted my placing a bomb under their arses (with a bit of help from the agent!).
That soon sorted out who had made the mistake!

 

[Two Tone]

Yes, I suppose it works both ways. Can you give an example of what options he chose that you wouldn't have thought of?

Certainly.

Taking bad BG (usually wet, poorly drained) fields out of the rotation and putting them into a Herb and Legume rich pasture for 3- 5 years. We are also Deer farmers. We will now use this land for forage, instead of (deer) fenced land. Therefore will increase the size of our Deer herd. Allegedly these herbs release an enzyme that kills dormant BG seed.

Using margins against ditches to grow nectar. This pays a huge amount of money. Far more so than the crop it replaces.

Using wild bird feeding strips. Cutting hedges every 3 years instead of every 2. But you can do it every 2 if you can cut them in certain months. Making better use of the permanent pasture the Deer use by changing fertiliser policy.

He opened my eyes to all sorts of areas we could earn more money on than trying to farm with crops, that were never going to produce a sensible yield every year.

It is almost like the whole system was invented for this farm!

Our Mid Tier will be worth 4 times what our ELS used to be.

Don't forget that NE is under contract to us for 5 years in exactly the same way we are to them. So they cannot pull out of these payments for those 5 years. These payments are guaranteed.

 

[bankrupt]

These payments are guaranteed.

Only if they have the funds.

 

[Feldspar]

Certainly.

Taking bad BG (usually wet, poorly drained) fields out of the rotation and putting them into a Herb and Legume rich pasture for 3- 5 years. We are also Deer farmers. We will now use this land for forage, instead of (deer) fenced land. Therefore will increase the size of our Deer herd. Allegedly these herbs release an enzyme that kills dormant BG seed.

Using margins against ditches to grow nectar. This pays a huge amount of money. Far more so than the crop it replaces.

Using wild bird feeding strips. Cutting hedges every 3 years instead of every 2. But you can do it every 2 if you can cut them in certain months. Making better use of the permanent pasture the Deer use by changing fertiliser policy.

He opened my eyes to all sorts of areas we could earn more money on than trying to farm with crops, that were never going to produce a sensible yield every year.

It is almost like the whole system was invented for this farm!

Our Mid Tier will be worth 4 times what our ELS used to be.

Don't forget that NE is under contract to us for 5 years in exactly the same way we are to them. So they cannot pull out of these payments for those 5 years. These payments are guaranteed.

Thanks for the explanation. I see Mid Tier in a similar way to you, although perhaps with not quite the same unique benefits. I think that people do not realise how much money they do, or rather do not make in the lower yielding bits of the field (like margins and under hedges). When you start looking at combine yield maps you realise that these areas will often lose money. A decent return from a buffer strip and the mitigation against pesticide drift makes it useful for us. The real benefit comes with the use of extended overwinter stubbles as a black grass management tool. We have distant areas of land which are often in quite small parcels, often with quite high weed burdens. The cost of farming these is often quite high and we often lose money with attention to detail and timeliness suffering. A return of £436 with very little risk and the opportunity to hit black-grass and not farm distant land is a no-brainer for me. Basic overwinter stubbles pay us £84/ha for doing what we would probably already be doing in no-till (well we might have shallowly cultivated which would put yield up a bit IMO). They are also paying us to put in hardcore tracks which will speed harvest logistics, make it easier to bring bowsers in and allow me to be lazy in inspecting crops overwinter when the ground is wet!

That all sounds rather selfish, but there will be a big environmental benefit from our scheme. We'll be providing about 150ha of habitat that might not have existed without Mid-Tier. We will be protecting our waterways much better than in ELS, and I think will generally be making our farm more interesting to look at. I prefer getting paid for doing something useful, rather than just getting a subsidy cheque for doing not much.

Whilst not getting paid 4 times what we got from ELS, we are getting a lot more from Mid Tier, although we are taking out a lot more land. Overall I think I prefer Mid Tier to ELS. If I had known there would be so few applications, I would have applied for much larger areas. As it was I went for a maximum score to make it very likely that we would be accepted.

I would say though that I believe that Natural England can pull out of the contact in exceptional circumstances. Brexit could easily be an exceptional circumstance, so don't assume it's 100% risk free. Less risky than cropping IMO though.

 

[Two Tone]

Only if they have the funds.

Those funds are guaranteed by Philip Hammond for the full five years, provided that your application was made before the (September was it?) deadline.

 

[Feldspar]

Those funds are guaranteed by Philip Hammond for the full five years, provided that your application was made before the (September was it?) deadline.

Politicians often change (their mind) though.

 

[Two Tone]

Politicians often change (their mind) though.

I agree. I might not trust everything a politician promises. But I do trust the law and Contractual Laws. So once you are in it....

 

[Feldspar]

I agree. I might not trust everything a politician promises. But I do trust the law and Contractual Laws. So once you are in it....

I think what will lower the chances of the government fiddling around is that not many people have applied, which will means the sums of money involved will not be huge. Less chance of raiding the pot by claiming exceptional circumstances as a reason to break the contract. Going to make sure we get on with our capital works sooner rather than later just in case though.