Prompt payments for rain-affected harvest farmers

Farmers whose crops were hit by wet weather during the summer harvest will get priority when annual subsidies begin to be paid out in a few weeks.

England's harvest is now virtually complete, and expected to be bigger than last year's, but many arable farmers were hit by heavy rain which affected the quality and value of crops and increased harvest costs.

Now government ministers have agreed with farmers' leaders that a special effort will be made to make sure payments to arable farmers due in mid-November reach those in the worst affected areas promptly.

Farmers in areas likely to include Northumberland, Tyne and Wear, County Durham, North and East Yorkshire, North Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire, Rutland and Northamptonshire will be at the front of the queue for arable area payments. Farmers elsewhere will be paid within the normal timescale.

Ministers and farming bodies decided this would be more effective than earlier partial payments which would have to be topped up later.

Farming and Food Minister Larry Whitty said:

"Every effort will be made to get cheques to hard-hit farmers as soon as the payment period opens. We are working closely with farmers' representatives to ensure the most effective targeting of our efforts and to explore other ways in which existing schemes and resources can be used to help.

"We appreciate the problems farmers have faced this summer, and it is a credit to them that despite serious delays and difficulties in many parts of the country that almost all of the crops are in now."