MAPS? it's a SHAMBLES!

"It's a shambles!" was NFU's uncompromising message to Lord Bach, the Government's sustainable farming and food minister, at a meeting today (Friday 13 January)*.

The issue is that of maps: maps requested by Defra's Rural Land Register and the Rural Payments Agency to enable farmers to apply for environmental payments; the maps that many farmers are finding are wrong, or inaccurate or just plain missing. Farmers have faced months and in some cases, years, of hassle, in trying to get accurate maps of their holdings.

NFU East Midlands has surveyed its email database of members, this week, and within 48 hours of asking the questions, NFU's regional office received a deluge of replies from frustrated and angry farmers, all having huge problems with their maps.

"We asked three simple questions," said NFU's regional director, Jack Ward. "Farmers told us in no uncertain terms that they are frustrated in the extreme with the delays and mistakes in the maps, which means that many can not apply for the environmental payments on their land for work done in habitat improvement and maintenance, and which could delay the payments of their 2005 single farm payment.

"We also asked about applications to the National Reserve - a mechanism for farmers to have more entitlements because of problems they faced in earlier claim years. 99% of respondents said they had yet to hear whether their claims have even been processed, let alone whether they will receive additional entitlements."

Concerns that the proposed single payment scheme payment timetable will slip even further, were also raised; this has angered farmers especially when they hear that producers in other parts of Europe have already been paid.

Jack Ward continued: "We talked to Lord Bach about other issues, too, but the problems of the maps, the national reserve and the delays farmers are experiencing, had to be answered first. We presented him with a dossier of more than 80 farmers' comments to us in the last few days, relating to mapping issues. The Minister acknowledged that there were problems in the system, and he admitted that they (RPA) were "trying to get it right".