Arable Area Payments (Hansard, 28 January 1994)

§ Mrs. Gillian Shephard

Over 46,000 applications covering over 3.5 million hectares were received. Details of the applications and a comparison with the base area are set out.

We are asking the Commission to establish a separate base area for maize, excluding sweetcorn, in England in 1994. This would mean that arable producers would not be penalised by the recent and continuing expansion in production of forage maize for silage by livestock producers. Should maize production exceed the base area, maize producers would be subject to an in-year reduction in arable area payments and additional uncompensated set-aside the following year, if they wished to continue to claim under the main scheme.

The changes to the rules on base area I negotiated at the December Agriculture Council mean that maize producers would be penalised only if both the regional maize base area and the total of the regional base areas for both maize and for other crops were exceeded.

Arable area payments are, of course intended to compensate farmers for the reductions in cereal prices agreed as part of common agricultural policy reform. Producers of forage maize for silage have not suffered from the reductions. Indeed, as livestock producers, they have benefited as cereals are a major input into feed. Many will also be in receipt of livestock subsidies.

Further changes to the base area will need to include linseed, which comes fully into the arable area payments scheme in 1994, and to exclude vining peas, which are no longer eligible for aid. The expected base area figures are shown in the table:

	Number
Numbers of applications
Main scheme	27,248
Simplified scheme	19,006
Total	46,254
Area applied for—ha
MAIN SCHEME:	3,361,589
Cereals and sweetcorn	2,173,529
of which: maize	34,804
Oilseeds	316,170
Proteins	220,853
of which: vining peas	29,782
Linseed	152,990
Set-aside	498,046
of which: growing non-food crops	49,870
SIMPLIFIED SCHEME:	225,857
Cereals	220,565
of which: maize	19,553
Oilseeds	1,844
Proteins	3,449
of which: Vining peas	214

415W

	Number
GRAND TOTAL	3,587,446

Comparison with Base Area (ha)
Number
Area applied for under Arable Area Payments Scheme (excluding vining peas and linseed)	3,404,460
Area in five-year set-aside	106,897
Eligible crops claimed as forage area	91,159
of which: maize	15,026
TOTAL	3,602,516
Base area	3,742,422
Base area less total	139,906

Proposed Revised Base Area (hectares) (Subject to Commission approval)
	Number
Maize	33,226
Other crops	3,761,366
Total	3,794,592