The main set of rules that farmers in Northern Ireland (NI) must follow is changing from 1 January 2026.

The seven new Farm Sustainability Standards effectively replace the long-standing cross compliance requirements for farm schemes in NI.

The new standards are requirements of all farm schemes administered by the Department of Agriculture, the Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA), with penalties applied to payments when rules are broken.

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The new rules cover areas such as prevention of water pollution, protection of habitats, animal welfare and livestock identification.

Penalties

The exact penalty that a rule breach attracts depends on the severity of the non-compliance and whether it is a first-time breach or a repeat offence.

In terms of severity, the new penalty matrix runs across five bands from 'very low' to 'very high'.

For all first-time breaches, regardless of severity, farmers will be required to complete mandatory online training before any farm payments are issued.

Breaches that are very low in severity will bring no financial penalty in the first instance, with only mandatory training and a warning letter handed out.

For a repeat very low severity breach, a 1% penalty or £50 fine applies, whichever is higher. This rises to 2% or £100 for a second repeat breach and 4% or £200 for a third repeat.

Severe breaches

Heftier penalties apply for more severe rules breaches. For example, for first-time offences, low severity rule breaches attract a 1% penalty or £50 fine, medium breaches start at 5% or £200 and high-severity offences bring a 25% penalty or £1,000 fine.

At the top end of the penalty matrix, first-time breaches that are deemed very high severity come with a 50% penalty or £2,100 fine, rising to 75% or £3,100 for a repeat offence.

A second repeat of a very high severity breach leads to a 100% penalty and exclusion from all schemes for the next year, while a third repeat brings about exclusion for the next two years.

Cross compliance

When compared with the old cross compliance system, a significant change with the new regime is that breaches are no longer categorised as either 'negligent' or 'intentional'.

These definitions led to a large number of appeals over the years, as breaches that were deemed intentional brought penalties worth up to 100% of payments, whereas negligent breaches were capped at 5%.