[SallyintNorth]

Please explain to me, in very simple terms, what is single farm payment?

Over to you SallyintheNorth!! You're our real farmer. My take on it is that the single farm payment is a subsidy paid to farmers in return for looking after the land.

That's a good precis, Mandy.

So, the thing is this.  All governments pay money into the EU and all want something back out.  One of the ways money comes back out is farming subsidies.

A pot of money is allocated to each country for them to distribute into their agricultural sector.  The bureaucrats get to decide how it is distributed.

I should add that the rest of this relates to England and Wales.  Scottish bureaucrats behave differently.

The bureaucrats of course want to keep as much of the money as possible for the bureaucrats, releasing as little as possible to the farmers themselves.

Bureaucrats are paid to think up ridiculously draconian schemes whereby farmers who can play agricultural Twister may end up with a bit of money.  Other bureaucrats are paid to think up ways of varying the schemes on a continual basis.  Further bureaucrats are paid to work out how to transition farmers and bureaucrats from one scheme to another.  Bureaucrats are paid to work out policing / auditing systems for the schemes and others to implement the audits.  Bureaucrats are paid to work out how much money to distribute to each farmer and other bureacrats to make those payments.

Even after all this work, there is still a little bit of money left over and this has to be allocated to farmers or be returned to Europe, and this is the Single Farm Payment. 

[robert waddell]

i think Sally's responce is a kneejerk reaction from a disgruntled recipient
during the second world war Britain was not self sufficient in food relying on massive imports after the war and so that the same situation was never repeated  incentives were introduced by the government to increase production these were know as subsidies cereal deficiency payment being one of them hill cow subside and sheep subside being another these were not just given to farmers but had to be earned cereals had to be harvested and not all farms were eligible for claiming sub then along came the EU and bonanza time for all farmers instigated by the french and germans to support small rural comunities  historically before the EU milk producers did not get any support and was a viable farming enterprise then came the milk lake and quotas  the first thing they did was complain it was restricting there business then they discovered it was worth money BIG MONEY and shut TFU cereals went the same way with set aside some getting thousands for doing what the medieval farmers did fallowing beef and sheep went down the same road as well    now not all farms at time qualified for subsidy payment it was only if you were in an area designated as disadvantaged or severely disadvantaged  with different payment rates accordingly highlands and islands were the top banana in payment rates per head at that time
the subside payments has altered throughout the years and is now classed as A SINGLE FARM PAYMENT this includes sheep cattle cereal and milk entitlements yes milk producers get a payment as well  at one time it was a headage payment now that headage payment still gets paid but on fewer animals to conserve the grazing and reduce the cost and workload to the farmer you also get paid for creating woodlands hedges and maintaining them ponds wetlands and areas of conservation at one time you used to get paid for applying lime reseeding fencing building sheds drainage even buying tractors livestock trailers etc
there is currently a new entrant scheme whereby the son or daughter can get the farm early improve the set up and get a grant towards it 30-40%  some of the schemes are in the region of a million pounds
not a simple explanation but one where it is explained more yes the sfp is getting year on year and there are a lot of farmers just waiting to to pack up and the sfp units is still worth money
in-truth the subsidies now refereed to sfp  are like a registered alcoholic that gets double social money take it away and they are screwed
and as i said  before it is not an easy bandwagon to get on  top heavy with officials  bogged down in administration and pig farmers get nothing never have and never will unless you apply for an environmental grant to improve housing and slurry disposal on a large scale
 

[SallyintNorth]

Well, ok, I can be a bit more specific if required.

In England (and Wales too I think?) the SFP, for one more year, is now a relatively simple area-related payment.  There is now no historical headage element, that has been phased out over the life of the current scheme.

Different types of land attract different rates of payment.

(In order to use up lots of money paying bureaucrats when the sheme is now 'relatively simple', the bureaucrats make the maps as wrong as possible, change them all the time, recategorise land all the time...)

Over and above SFP, which is a currently an entitlement for all farmers / landowners who can meet some basic requirements to maintain the land in good agricultural heart, there are various other schemes where monies can be allocated either as grants for specific projects and/or as annual payments against a usually 5- or 10-year contractual agreement to farm specific pieces of land in specific ways, usually to render environmental or other benefits.

Some of these include Countryside Stewardship, CSS; Entry-Level Environmental Stewardship, ELS; Higher-Level Environmental Stewardship, HLS; Uplands Environmental Stewardship, UELS; Organic Entry-Level Environmental Stewardship, OELS.

The current SFP scheme runs out next year.  At the moment we are not sure what it will be replaced with, but it seems relatively certain there will be more environmental commitments required in order to claim it.