Overview

CXCS Representatives: Caitie Pritchard & Jayde Matthews

Please note that all names and locations have been removed to protect the identity of our clients and the inspectors.

Our client has two holdings that fall under one SBI, however, these are run as two separate businesses being approximately 25 miles apart from each other.

• Farm 1 is arable and grass and consists of 245 dairy cows
• Farm 2 is all grass and carries roughly 200 dairy cows. All slurry is separated and the solid manure fraction is exported off the holding.

Our client was informed by the inspector from the RPA that an inspection was going to take place at both farms. Once CXCS was informed of the inspection Caitie phoned the inspector to gather the details of what paperwork was needed for the inspection. The inspector welcomed the call and stated the documents which would be checked were as follows; 2017 recommendations, 2017 manure diary, 2016 NVZ and spray records, he also mentioned he would be looking around and asking questions relating the parlour.

The ground had already been walked prior to the phone call.

The Inspection

Caitie and Jayde met the inspector in the office at Farm one where he began by going through the following;

• Feed receipt invoices – these were all present in an organised folder
• Groundwater abstractions – Our client has not abstracted for the past 10 years
• Vet & Medicine book – this was correctly filled in and up to date
• Spray records – five parcels of different crops were chosen containing all spray applications for each, MAPP numbers were present – The inspector took these away with him to check the applications were compliant

Afterwards Caitie and Jayde asked the inspector what documents he would like to see from the cross compliance file, however, he replied that he would rather have the file and look through it himself as he was familiar with our file and found it easier this way.

The inspector noted down the information he needed and didn’t ask any questions regarding the records within the file, he then informed us he was happy with the paperwork provided and also had no issues to report outside when walking the ground.

The inspector was due to visit our client at Farm two a few days later (Friday 29th) however as Caitie and Jayde had the file for Farm two with them they asked if they could also go through the paperwork side of it to save time. The inspector was happy with this and again had no issues with the paperwork we produced.

The inspector was happy for us to leave as the reports provided by CXCS were more than adequate. Finally, the inspector had a good look around the parlour and all was in order.

Notes

• Inspections carrying on into December due to top-ups on BPS
• Third party blame – claimants have been appealing penalty deductions caused by a third party and succeeding in receiving their money back e.g. contractor breaching the 2m protection zone
• Spraying of footpaths – when planting an arable crop make sure you spray out the footpath also make sure footpaths are easily accessible at all times. Footpath breaches attracted a 5% breach in most cases and are more common than 2m Protection Zone breaches
• RPA class larger financial claims as higher risk rather than the actual enterprise itself, for example, a large arable farm claiming £50,000 would be seen as a higher risk than a dairy farm close to its NVZ nitrogen Loading claiming only £20,000