Chamber and committees

Three-thousand, nine hundred and seventy applications to the Land Managers Options (LMOs) mechanism have been received. The breakdown by number and value and percentage of total by option is as follows. (Please note that the total by option exceeds the total number of applications because each application may cover several options).

Option	Number of Applications	Value	% of Total Value of All Options
Biodiversity cropping in-bye	10	£1,900	0.04%
Business Audit	112	£16,000	0.33%
Conservation headlands	9	£2,300	0.05%
Linear feature Dykes	137	£37,000	0.77%
Linear features Hedges	39	£3,900	0.08%
Modernisation through electronic data management- forestry	11	£9,600	0.20%
Modernisation through electronic data management- agriculture	891	£788,000	16.41%
Grass margins and Beetlebanks	39	£27,500	0.57%
Improving Access	105	£247,000	5.14%
Improving rush pasture	404	£333,000	6.93%
Management of archaeological or historic sites	28	£25,000	0.52%
Management of moorland	25	£34,000	0.71%
Nutrient management	69	£15,000	0.31%
Membership of quality assurance scheme	528	£51,000	1.06%
Retention of winter stubbles	121	£121,000	2.51%
Summer cattle grazing	88	£37,000	0.76%
Small woodland creation	157	£251,000	5.22%
Access creation for forest management	38	£102,000	2.12%
Management of tree stocks for seed production	1	£2,000	0.04%
Management of small woodland	56	£21,000	0.44%
Training	1,062	£464,000	9.66%
Management of rural vernacular buildings	1,155	£2,098,000	43.67%
Wild bird seed /unharvested crops	189	£118,000	2.46%
		£4,803,000

 

LMOs is a non-discretionary scheme and there is thus no approval process. Land managers apply and are paid provided they comply with the LMO rules. Eleven applications were rejected (0.28%) mainly because they were not submitted by the deadline. An applicant''s maximum allowance is calculated according to the amount of land they have. The total available maximum allowances for LMOs (after deducting the amount used for existing LMCMS commitments) for those individuals who applied was around £7,600,000. The total applied for was £4,803,000, which is 63.27% of the total they could have chosen to apply for.

The review panel has met with representatives of the agricultural industry in Scotland, England, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland as well as a number of representatives from European farming unions. It also held discussions with Scottish Government officials and their counterparts in other UK administrations and Ireland.

In addition it undertook a survey of individual farmers in Scotland who had used the appeals process to help it identify areas of concern and where improvements might be made.

The panel is currently finalising its report and I expect to receive its findings within the next two to three weeks.

The EU agricultural subsidies appeals review panel is due to report to me in the next two to three weeks. I will make a further statement once its findings have been fully considered.

As part of its consultation, the agricultural subsidies appeals review panel met with Irish government officials and representatives of the Irish agricultural industry to discuss how the appeals procedure operated in Ireland.

It will be up to the panel to recommend whether or not any of the measures used in Ireland should be adopted in Scotland when it submits its findings to me.

It is anticipated, at this stage, that the report will be submitted by the Directorate for Planning and Environmental Appeals in the first week in October.

It is anticipated, at this stage, that the report will be submitted by the Directorate for Planning and Environmental Appeals (DPEA) in the first week in October.

Scottish Planning Policy 1: The planning system seeks to ensure that 80% of all applications called-in for determination by Scottish ministers are determined within two months of receipt of the report from the DPEA and 100% of cases within three months.

The Scottish Government does not have to alter current policy, in light of the recent bad weather conditions because the Good Agricultural and Environmental Condition (GAEC) measures for Scotland were drawn up to reflect Scottish conditions and the country''s wide variability of soils, habitats and farming systems.

The Scottish Cross Compliance regulations make provision for the effects of adverse weather conditions such as are being experienced this year.

In the first half of December. NFU Scotland and the Scottish Agricultural College have agreed to conduct test runs with selected farmers before the revised guidance is published. It is planned that the guidance will be put on the Scottish Government website in early November and that copies of the guidance will be sent to all farmers in the nitrate vulnerable zones in early December. In addition, the Scottish Agricultural College will conduct a number of workshops to explain the new rules and procedures.

Several actions are being taken to assist farmers who may be affected by the revised Nitrate Vulnerable Zone Action Programme. In particular, they may be eligible for funding from the Scotland Rural Development Programme towards the costs of manure and slurry storage. We will be issuing guidance on the new requirements, and the Scottish Agricultural College is preparing a series of workshops. We have established the Nitrates Directive Stakeholder Group to identify ways in which farmers can most effectively make the transition from the current to the new action programme requirements. This will reduce the risk of fertiliser pollution in Scotland, and help farmers get more value from both organic and inorganic fertilisers.

Any farmer or land manager with land in Scotland may choose to apply under Land Managers Options (LMOs) provided they also submit a single application form (SAF). Together with any existing ongoing five year commitments under land management contracts menu scheme (LMCMS), the total must not exceed a total allowance calculated in accordance with the amount of land they have. Of the 51,000 farm holdings in Scotland, around 21,000 claim CAP funds through the single application and IACS. Of those, around half choose to apply for LMCMS and LMOs. Currently, around one third of the total LMCMS and LMO applicants have applied for LMOs. This figure is likely to rise as existing five year LMCMS commitments end.