Cross Compliance Changes

If you are a farmer claiming for the Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) or other stewardship schemes such as the Countryside Stewardship (CS), Entry Level or Higher Level Stewardship, or the Farm Woodland Payments element of the English Woodland Grant Scheme, you must comply with cross compliance in 2023 in order to receive your payment(s).

Cross compliance is made up of ‘Statutory Management Requirements’ and standards for ‘Good Agricultural and Environmental Conditions’ and from 1st January 2023, the way cross compliance is run was changed.  All BPS claims and CS agreements will now fall under domestic terms and conditions; therefore, penalties will be applied in the same way for all schemes.

The rules which must be met, have not changed for the 2023 year although for CS agreements starting on or after 1 January 2021, you must meet the cross-compliance rules under the terms and conditions of your agreement. Many rules of cross compliance continue to fall within English laws, and you will likely be carrying out many cross-compliance practices as part of English legislation. After 2023, cross compliance rules will not apply due to the replacement of BPS with delinked payments, for which you then must claim, and be eligible for, BPS payments in the 2023 scheme year to receive delinked payments for 2024-27.

What do the changes mean for you? For 2023, businesses will no longer be subject to ‘inspections’, but ‘visits’ instead. If your farm is subject to a cross compliance visit by a field officer, you may not receive any advance warning.

If any form of non-compliance is identified, the seriousness of the non-compliance will be assessed against the field officers ‘verifiable standards’. The seriousness of any non-compliance will be based on the severity and how permanent it is. The penalty faced will now be more proportional to the severity of the non-compliance.

Where non-compliance has been identified and the field officer considers you have not been negligent and caused no risk to public health, you may be issued with an advisory compliance notice explaining the issue and how it can be remedied. However, where a more serious breach is identified, you may have your rural payment(s) reduced for non-compliance.

For further information on the cross compliance changes please contact Nia Bushell on 01743 290636 or email nia.bushell@berrys.uk.com.