DEFRA could relieve the huge pressure on farmers caused by the delay in issuing Single Payments entitlements by extending the deadlines on entitlement transfers, says farm business consultants Strutt & Parker.

“There is a tight deadline for establishing entitlements, and an even tighter one for people who wish to trade,” says George Chichester of Strutt & Parker. “Relaxing the trading deadlines would be a small token that would make farmers lives easier after the huge problems caused by the late payments.”

DEFRA wants six weeks to process transfer forms which, under EU rules, must be in by 15 May. By way of contrast, the RPA normally processes milk quota transfer forms in 28 days. There is no intrinsic difference between the two types of transaction.

Under that timetable applications to transfer entitlements must therefore be submitted by the 2 April. That is a Sunday, he points out, meaning that the actual deadline for submission is 31 March. For tenancies to comply with the ten-month rule they must start before 30 April, meaning that any farmer who wants to transfer entitlements before then needs to apply by 17 March.

“And yet many farmers will probably not receive confirmation of their entitlements until the first week in March,” he says. “This leaves just over a week for a transferor to get the RPA to print out and send a pre-printed transfer form; to fill it in and sign; send it to the transferee to sign, and finally return it to the RPA. In some cases this will simply not be possible.

“I would like to see the notification period for entitlement transfers fall to two weeks for this year, thus extending the deadline to 1 May,” adds Mr Chichester. “It’s a tall order, especially given DEFRA’s track record so far, but with £1.5bn of English farmer’s money delayed in the system and racking-up interest payments on overdrafts and loans, it is the least that can be done.”