Thousands of farmers who have waited months for their overdue agri-environment payments will finally be paid in July.
Around 22,500 eligible farmers in Environmental Stewardship (ES) and Countryside Stewardship (CS) agreements will be paid the owed £115m.
The government confirmed the news on today (19 June) after months of uncertainty, with some unpaid annual revenue claims dating back to 2015..
This is a Treasury-funded payment, which will be made to farmers while their annual revenue claims from the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) budget are processed.
Rural Payment Agency (RPA) Chief Executive, Paul Caldwell, said the government is 'determined to restore confidence' in the schemes.
But the NFU said thousands of farming families have had to resort to overdrafts and loans because the government had 'not fulfilled its side of the contract'.
NFU Deputy President Guy Smith said: “The news comes as we had worked with one of our legal panel firms, Thrings, through our Legal Assistance Scheme to assist individual farmer members in pursuing their debt claims against the RPA. Hopefully this service will no longer be necessary.
“However, we will continue to monitor the situation to make sure these overdue payments are made in full and at last hit farm bank accounts.”
The RPA is writing to all unpaid customers this week to provide an update on payments.
Once individual claims have been processed, it will write again to customers to confirm any adjustments to be made to the final payment.
