NI farmers opting to buy BPS entitlements

More farmers in NI are choosing to buy Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) entitlements for clean land, rather than lease them for a one-year claim.

It comes after DAERA published policy proposals in December which confirmed that existing BPS entitlements will be used as the basis for claiming a new area-based resilience payment.

This time last year, the future use of BPS entitlements was unclear, so most NI farmers who needed entitlements decided to lease them for their 2021 single application.

Some entitlements were still sold last year, but this tended to be for smaller areas of land and sales were agreed at around the full value of the entitlement for one year’s claim.

According to Omagh-based auctioneer Roy McCracken, the recent clarity from DAERA on future schemes has led to a noticeable increase in the demand for purchasing entitlements.

Market

“Buying prices have firmed up this year. Anybody who owns the land is trying to buy entitlements for it. We see a good enough market,” he told the Irish Farmers Journal.

However, some uncertainty still remains, particularly around the value of entitlements in the future. In 2023, entitlement values are likely to be unchanged, but a 17% cut is expected to be applied in 2024 to fund new headage payments.

DAERA is also planning for more cuts to be applied to entitlement values (and therefore the new resilience payment) so that funding is freed up for a new “Farming for Nature” package.

Confidence

“The value of entitlements will be trimmed down, and new schemes will kick in, but at least now we know there will still be an area-based payment and it will be based on entitlements. It has given farmers more confidence to purchase entitlements this year,” McCracken said.

Some deals are still being done for one-year leasing of entitlements and prices depend on the value and number of entitlements on offer. In general, entitlements are leased at 40-60% of their value.

Deadlines

The online system for transferring BPS entitlements for the 2022 scheme year opened on Tuesday (1 March) and is set to close at midnight on 3 May.

The single application and mapping service also opened on Tuesday and applications need to be submitted by 16 May to avoid late claim penalties.

The single application is used for making claims for a wide range of schemes, including the BPS, the young farmers’ payment, the regional reserve, the environmental farming scheme and, for the second year running, the protein crops pilot scheme.