Goweresque
Member
- Location
- North Wilts
The new rules on red and white diesel use come in soon, on the 1st of April. Obviously farming has still has a concession to use red. But to what extent will some machines/operations that take place on a farm require white from now on? Quite a lot of things that happen on a farm are not purely agricultural in nature. Quite a lot are of a construction/civil engineering type - digging ditches, repairing roads & tracks, laying concrete, preparing sites, erecting buildings, even fencing possibly.
So if a farm has machines like 360 excavators, backhoes and telehandlers, should they be operating on white if the work being done is not purely agricultural? For example, one can argue that combining a field is purely agricultural, in that you can never be doing it and it not be agricultural, harvesting is a fundamental part of food production. So a combine can always be on red. Whereas digging out ditches is not in and of itself agricultural. You could be digging ditches on a construction site and therefore need white. Equally fencing in and of itself is not always agricultural, fences are erected for all manner of purposes other than farming. So when these operations take place on a farm, are they agricultural ones or not? Do the machines need red or white? Does it make a difference if the farmer is doing the work himself, or is employing contractors? One assumes that if you have a new shed erected the contractor's equipment will need to be on white. So does the same apply to the farmer erecting his own shed? How far down the rabbit hole are HMRC going to go? Are we going to see HMRC turning up and dipping machinery and fining people based on what that machine was doing at that point in time rather than where it was (ie on a farm)?
Another point as ELMS increasingly kicks in is whether environmental work counts as farming? Does topping your wild bird cover count as farming, if no food is being produced? Or drilling it for that matter? After all by definition ELMS is paying for 'public goods' not food, so is it farming any more?
I guess my point is this - has any comprehensive definition of what constitutes 'agriculture' been provided with regards to the new rules? Or are we going to face massive uncertainty for the next decade or more as HMRC push the envelope of what is and what is not allowed?
So if a farm has machines like 360 excavators, backhoes and telehandlers, should they be operating on white if the work being done is not purely agricultural? For example, one can argue that combining a field is purely agricultural, in that you can never be doing it and it not be agricultural, harvesting is a fundamental part of food production. So a combine can always be on red. Whereas digging out ditches is not in and of itself agricultural. You could be digging ditches on a construction site and therefore need white. Equally fencing in and of itself is not always agricultural, fences are erected for all manner of purposes other than farming. So when these operations take place on a farm, are they agricultural ones or not? Do the machines need red or white? Does it make a difference if the farmer is doing the work himself, or is employing contractors? One assumes that if you have a new shed erected the contractor's equipment will need to be on white. So does the same apply to the farmer erecting his own shed? How far down the rabbit hole are HMRC going to go? Are we going to see HMRC turning up and dipping machinery and fining people based on what that machine was doing at that point in time rather than where it was (ie on a farm)?
Another point as ELMS increasingly kicks in is whether environmental work counts as farming? Does topping your wild bird cover count as farming, if no food is being produced? Or drilling it for that matter? After all by definition ELMS is paying for 'public goods' not food, so is it farming any more?
I guess my point is this - has any comprehensive definition of what constitutes 'agriculture' been provided with regards to the new rules? Or are we going to face massive uncertainty for the next decade or more as HMRC push the envelope of what is and what is not allowed?
