Farm payment money has yet to start flowing in Cumbria, it is claimed. 

According to the county’s top farming officials, farmers are still facing “significant” delays in seeing basic payments hit their bank accounts. 

Today was the deadline set by the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) to meet its target of paying the “vast majority” of claimants by the end of this month.


Ian Mandle But National Farmers’ Union senior group secretary Ian Mandle, based in Carlisle, said he had yet to discover one farmer in north Cumbria who had received their Basic Payment Scheme cheque.

“It is very, very frustrating. We rely on these agencies to deliver and – with the amounts of money involved – when they don’t deliver it is so catastrophic for farmers, suppliers and banks,” said Mr Mandle.

“The message to get across is that while the RPA have said they made 51 per cent of the payments, it is the small fraction of the money paid out that tells us that the vast majority of farmers have not been paid the larger sums.”

He continued: “At the moment we are coming into the winter period and already the farming community has been hit extremely hard over the last eight months, and managing cash flow is an impossible task on these farms.

“We expected this money would come in December and January and when the RPA fail to deliver there is a huge amount of anxiety. There is also a big impact on the county’s ancillary services.

“Farmers are being forced to make decisions they would not normally make, like selling livestock before they have reached their peak.”

And west Cumbrian farmer Alistair Mackintosh, who is in the running for the NFU top job, said as far as he was aware no farmer in his patch had received any EU money.

“I haven’t had my farm payment either,” he told The Cumberland News . “It is impossible for farmers to run their businesses without knowing when they would be paid.

“This money is a lifeline to those farmers who are on the brink after well over a year of low farmgate prices and dealing with the aftermath of the recent floods.”

Defra insists the agency is on track to meet its goal. Halfway through this week, 57,000 of an expected 88,000 farmers had received their money, equivalent to almost two-thirds of eligible claimants.

Mike and Ruth Tuer of Crake Trees Manor, near Penrith, are just one of the county’s farming families, who are still waiting for their farm payment. All of their 180 acres of mainly grassland is under the Higher Level Stewardship conservation scheme, and the couple were told last year that payments for this would be delayed.

Then, when Storm Desmond hit in early December, their holiday cottage in the local village of Maulds Meaburn was flooded, and they were facing loss of income in the form of bookings.

We’ve had nothing through,” said Mr Tuer, “Not even word about when we can expect it. We reached a crisis point in being able to just keep the business going.”

Fortunately, the couple’s bank, Lloyds, came to their rescue and they were able to borrow £10,000 from its fee-free Farmer Fund.

“If we didn’t have access to this borrowing, our losses could have been far worse,” said Mike.

The £500m BPS farmer fund, says Lloyds, will remain open throughout the window for delayed payment.

A payment run is expected to be made by the RPA this weekend. Further regular payment runs are expected to be made throughout February and March and probably into April.

Guy Smith, NFU vice-president said Defra and its agencies must be more transparent and clear as to when they think this money will go out, rather than hiding behind a veil of confusion.