Pressure is mounting on the Scottish Government to abandon a 20% cut to Less Favoured Area Support Scheme (LFASS) claims next year, as the EU deadline to move to an “Areas of Natural Constraint” (ANC) payment has been extended to 2019.

“We have made the necessary arrangements in the Omnibus regulation to allow the ANC be pushed back to 2019 if the member state wishes to do so,” the EU Commissioner for Agriculture Phil Hogan told the Farmers Journal Scotland in an exclusive interview this week. “The provision has already gone through the legislative process to allow that to happen if the work and mapping is not completed on the ground.”

Worth over £60m to the rural economy each year, LFASS payments would be cut by 20% next year to facilitate the change in payment structures. Unless the Scottish Government delays the process LFASS, farmers and crofters will receive just 80% of their claim value next year, otherwise known as “parachute payments”.

A Scottish Government spokesperson said “Ministers are considering the options that this [Omnibus regulation] presents and will confirm what this means for Scotland’s farmers and crofters, who will apply for LFASS in 2018, in the near future.”

The timing of Brexit is significant, as the UK will leave the EU before the ANC system must be implemented in 2019.

Peter Chapman MSP, shadow Cabinet Secretary for Rural Economy and Connectivity, called on the Government to abandon the parachute payments and make the full LFASS payment in 2018.

“We only need to look at the dire situation, with farm incomes falling this year again, to see that this money is desperately needed,” Chapman told Farmers Journal Scotland. “Giving the 100% payment would be very welcome to the remote and difficult areas to farm in.”

NFU Scotland president Andrew McCornick echoed Chapman’s call and added that the union has been putting pressure on the Government to clarify this issue.

“I will be really disappointed if they don’t give farmers and crofters their full LFASS payment in 2018,” McCornick said. “The Government currently has a vehicle to deliver upland payments through LFASS, whereas it does not have the ability to deliver payments through ANC, which is currently in a development stage.”