Farmers win 43% of appeals to Agriculture Appeals Office in 2024
Appeals paid off for 43% of farmers, whose appeals were allowed, partially allowed, or revised. Appeals were withdrawn, invalid, or late for 13%, and were disallowed for 44%.
No-one likes paperwork, least of all farmers who have to tackle it after a hard day's work, and may struggle to stay awake through the bureaucracy.
And when something goes wrong, it is easy to throw the hands in the air, and give up trying to unravel the knots, even if there's an expensive penalty imposed on the annual EU farm payment.
But 483 farmers did not give up in 2024, and went all the way to the Agriculture Appeals Office to make their case.
It paid off for 43%, whose appeals were allowed, partially allowed, or revised. Appeals were withdrawn, invalid, or late for 13%, and were disallowed for 44%.
One of the successes was an appeal against an Organic Farming Scheme penalty for inadequate record-keeping.
The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) said a clerical error by a farmer’s veterinary practice incorrectly allocated a prohibited substance to the organic farmer. The error was transcribed into the farmer’s records and identified at inspection, giving rise to a 100% penalty.
The Department subsequently accepted the explanation regarding the error by the veterinary practice, and withdrew the 100% penalty. However, the Department noted the requirement to maintain complete and accurate records, and a 20% penalty was imposed for inadequate record keeping.
The farmer appealed on the grounds that the error in question arose in the veterinary practice. Once it was identified, a correction was notified to the relevant governing body. The farmer said the 20% penalty was extreme in the context of an error made by an external service provider.
The Appeals Officer was satisfied that the error resulted from transcription of mistaken details provided by the veterinary practice, and was not a "critical non-compliance". There was no evidence to suggest general carelessness by the farmer in the keeping of records, nor that the integrity of the organic product was in any way impacted.
The Appeals Officer found that the issue was more appropriately considered as falling within the scope of "minor non-compliance".
Another farmer who did not give up in the face of bureaucracy had been told by the DAFM that the purchased strip-till drill did not meet the required description of a machine applied for under the Young Farmers Capital Investment TAMS II Scheme.
Following a claim for payment, the DAFM inspected the purchased item and found that the item was a direct drill, and did not have primary cultivation tines for the narrow strip of soil where the seed is to be placed.
The farmer appealed on grounds that the purchased machine places seed in the soil in an environmentally friendly manner, and meets the purpose of the TAMS scheme. There was no obvious reason why the machine did not conform with minimum disturbance tillage.
The Agriculture Appeals Office allowed the appeal, ruling that the purchased machine can be adjusted to perform as a strip drill, and therefore meets the requirements. The DAFM updated its specification for tillage machinery in November, 2023, to clarify that “machines that are designed so that they may be set up or adjusted or modified by the operator as either min-till, direct-drill, or strip-drill, depending upon the circumstances, are classified as min-till drills for grant-aid under the TAMS 3 scheme”.
The successful appellants deserve praise for diving further into the red tape in order to pursue their claims.
Before going the Appeals Office route, a farmer must first seek an Internal Review of the DAFM decision they are unhappy with, in one of the many schemes administered by the DAFM, which pay almost €2 billion in supports to the Irish farming and food sectors annually.
If Internal Review is unsuccessful, applicants have three months to make a submission to the Agriculture Appeals Office. If the appeal is deemed valid, the appellant (and the appellant's representatives) can opt for an oral hearing.
The decision of an Appeals Officer is final, but either the DAFM or the appellant may seek a review of the decision, if they believe there is an error in fact or in law, in the decision.
An Appeals Officer, or the Director of Agriculture Appeals, may revise a decision.
Or a really determined appellant may raise their case with the Office of the Ombudsman, or even appeal a decision to the High Court on a question of law.
