Summary
The way in which Defra and its Rural Payments Agency (RPA) bungled the distribution of financial support to farmers is now so well documented that it has passed into rural folklore. Like the BSE crisis of the 1990s, the foot and mouth outbreak of 2001 and bovine TB that stretches right through the period, it is yet another entry in the list of calamities that have affected Westcountry farming in recent years.
So it would scarcely seem possible there might be further evidence of the shambolic nature of this episode - yet some has just emerged. One of the many flaws with the distribution system for the Single Farm Payment was the way it suddenly brought thousands of very modest landowners under the umbrella of agricultural grants and prompted them to make claims. We now learn a staggering pounds3 million was wasted processing subsidies worth less than pounds3 a week to hobby farmers.See the full content of this document
Extract
Rural Payments Blunders Go On
We are not suggesting these very small operators did not deserve the money they eventually received. It was not their fault, after all, the European Union introdu...
See the full content of this document
Sponsored links
