A leading Cumbria union official says Defra should remain the voice of farming, as rumours continue to circulate over its future viability.

There have been strong hints that Government is planning to transfer the farming element from Defra to the Department of Business Innovation and Skills (BIS).

But Cumbria’s council delegate for the National Farmers’ Union, Alistair Mackintosh said it would be a “shame” to lose Defra.

“Farming is a unique industry, we need a specialist department to recognise that.”

However, he admitted, there are a lot of issues in Defra that need to be resolved for it to continue as a department.

“We are constantly being told to be more efficient as an industry. Well I would put that challenge to Defra. It needs to be more lean and mean, and give value for money.”

Most departments, including Defra, have been asked to find savings of up to 40 per cent as Chancellor George Osborne seeks budget cuts of £20 billion by 2020. For Defra, which has faced a budget cut from £3bn to just over £2bn since 2010/11, this could pose problems.

Mr Mackintosh, a west Cumbrian beef and sheep farmer, said: “We would be looking to seek more detail about how such a change would work.

“At the end of the day I always look at my farm as a business. I work to live, not live to work, so there could be benefits for farming to move to BIS.

But huge questions remain, like where would animal health fit?” It would not sit well with business, and could lead to an enormous amount of cost being transferred back to the industry.”

“With the spending review, Defra is definitely looking more vulnerable,” he added.

Meanwhile, the Rural Payments Agency (RPA), has indicated it could be in a position to start paying the agri-environmental scheme part payments section of the Basic Payment Scheme, by mid-October.

Environmental stewardship payments have traditionally been made in August, but Defra and Natural England announced recently these would be delayed until October, with most paid in November and December.

However,

Mr Mackintosh warned there are still some concerns over whether the RPA would be able to deliver on their aspirations .

“It’s quite frustrating and quite difficult to put the RPA on the spot . It is very difficult to get time-lines out of them.“If these payments are not started to be made next month, then we need to have some real hard talking, and there needs to be some fireworks somewhere

,” said Mr Mackintosh.

The RPA is blaming the delay on the time taken to carry out the necessary cross checks on Basic Payments. “This should be completed this week,” said Mr Mackintosh.