Claiming BPS 2020 and greening payments in extreme weather

Exemptions from the crop diversification requirement for 2020

If your normal cropping pattern is disrupted, the crop diversification requirements you will have to satisfy may differ from previous years.

If the area in fallow, temporary grass and leguminous crops together makes up more than 75% of your arable land, you will be exempt from crop diversification requirements in 2020. A further exemption may apply if more than 75% of all the agricultural area (all of the claimed land apart from woodland and ineligible areas) is permanent or temporary grassland.

Guidance on fallow management requirements and meeting your crop diversification requirements can be found on page 38 of the Basic Payment Scheme: rules for 2019. You may also find it useful to read the Greening workbook for the Basic Payment Scheme in England.

Force majeure and exceptional circumstances

If bad weather or flooding prevents you from meeting your crop diversification requirements, you may be able to claim force majeure because of the impact of forces beyond your control.

Spring cropping is a possible option available if you have been unable to plant winter crops. We would not consider a force majeure request from you for being unable to meet the crop diversification rules until later in spring 2020. This is when the full impact of the adverse weather conditions and the final impact on spring cropping can be assessed.

However, if it becomes clear that it won’t be possible to establish spring crops on your land, you should collect evidence to support a possible future claim.

Other force majeure requests relating to other matters can and will be considered at any other time and will have their own point when the ’15 working day’ notification period starts.

The following points will help you.

• Force majeure is defined as abnormal and unforeseeable circumstances outside of the farmer’s control, the consequences of which, in spite of the exercise of all due care, could not have been avoided without excessive sacrifice
• If you believe that wet weather and poor ground condition has prevented you from meeting BPS scheme rules, you must inform RPA of your circumstances within 15 working days from the date on which you are in a position to do so. This is taken from the point that you realise you cannot meet the rules, not necessarily from the force majeure event itself

• You will need to provide evidence explaining why the wet weather prevented you from meeting the BPS scheme rules. This should include details of the actions you took, or were unable to take, with an explanation of the events and the dates they occurred. Examples of appropriate evidence would include:

  • rainfall data, related to your farm or local area, showing that rain was exceptional on your farm during the period when you would normally be drilling or planting crops.
  • seed invoices supported by delivery notes
  • evidence of soil types
  • crop records including drilling dates, if applicable
  • evidence of your original cropping plans for 2020
  • letters from suppliers unable to supply the seed you wanted
  • photographs showing the conditions in your fields. Ideally these should be date-stamped and contain reference features that can be related to a map so that the position you took the photo from can be identified

Send force majeure requests and supporting evidence to:

Source: GOV.UK