A last chance for late Single Payment applicants
The Department of Agriculture and Food is writing to farmers to whom single payment entitlements had been allocated, but who did not submit an application form before the June 10, 2005 final deadline for activating entitlements.
Their entitlements will be surrendered to the National Reserve, unless they respond immediately to the department's letter, and acquire a late, 2005 Single Payment Scheme application accepted on the grounds of force majeure or exceptional circumstances, including not being farming in 2005.
Applications to transfer entitlements by way of inheritance or gift, or by administrative transfer where there was an addition or deletion of a name or names to the herd number, will also be assessed now for proposed recipients who submitted a Single Payment Scheme application by the deadline of June 10, 2005.
Meanwhile, Agriculture and Food Minister Mary Coughlan, has announced that the closing date for receipt of applications under the 2006 Single Payment Scheme and the 2006 Disadvantaged Areas Scheme will be 5.30 pm on Monday, April 24, 2006.
A personalised application form, with pre-printed details, will be posted this month to farmers who applied under the 2005 schemes. Applicants are required to examine the pre-printed details carefully and to ensure that they are correct. If the details are incorrect, and have not been amended by the applicant, penalties may be incurred.
Persons who submitted a 2005 Single Payment Scheme application form in order to activate their single payment entitlements will be made aware of the options open to them in 2006 - to commence farming and submit a Single Payment Scheme application form, or to transfer their entitlements, with lands, by way of sale, lease, rental agreement, inheritance or gift.
The Department of Agriculture and Food is issuing statements to 23,000 dairy farmers outlining the quantity of milk used for the calculation of the dairy premium and the amount of premium established in each case, which has been incorporated in the single payment, from 2005.
The department has also advised sugar beet growers to declare sufficient hectares to benefit from their full single payment in 2006, which will include compensation for reform of the European Union sugar industry, based on a three-year average of each farmer's contracted beet tonnage in 2001, 2002 and 2004.
These compensation payments will total €123m over the next seven years. Farmers who receive this can avail of consolidation in 2006 in order to benefit from their full single payment. The European Commission has said that beet growers who consolidated their entitlements in 2005 will be allowed to add the extra entitlements to their consolidated entitlements in 2006, provided their situation has not altered.
