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OCTOBER ENTITLEMENT TRADING UPDATE – HOSTING & LEASING – PRE 21ST ENTITLEMENT TRANSFERS – HOW WILL CAPIS WORK? – 2015 DUAL USE UPDATE – AUTUMN RPA INSPECTIONS – MILK QUOTA – ACTIVE FARMER TEST     ENTITLEMENT TRADING UPDATE – NON-SDA     As we move closer to the 21st October transfer deadline, now only 11…

Arable, bare land values as we know have now broken through the £10,000 per acre barrier in the South West. This is for the best land but without any amenity, development or alternative use value. The latest RICS/ RAU Rural Land Market Survey suggests that the average price per acre in the South West is…

Dairy farmers hanging on to quota ‘just in case’ of a change of policy The RPA provisional production figures for August 2014 were released on 6th September and show that UK dairy farmers delivered 1,192.9 million litres of milk, beating all the monthly production records for August since they were first publicised in 1994. This…

With the details of the next Rural Development Programme still being negotiated we are currently in a transitional period running from 1st January 2014 to 31st December 2015. Unfortunately due to the high level of demand for English Woodland Grant Scheme (EWGS) grants under the previous Rural Development Programme there is limited finance available for…

With Michaelmas fast approaching, negotiations between landlords and tenants are likely to be well underway in respect to new rents to apply from autumn this year. The default provisions for both the old style Agricultural Holdings Act tenancies and Farm Business Tenancies is for rent reviews to take place on a three year cycle subject…

An increasingly common problem in the final stages of selling farms is confusion surrounding pollution and waste materials on the property.  These problems not only delay sales but can in some cases incur disproportionate costs at the last moment to rectify, and sometimes the loss of the sale.  As with the good management of any…

Defra’s budget for the New Environmental Land Management Scheme (NELMS) for the next six years will be less than a third of the agri-environment scheme budget for the current period and payment rates under the new scheme, which is set to be launched in 2015, are likely to be significantly lower than those under the…

There will by now be few farmers unaware of their duties in respect to the health and safety of their farm workers. There have been all too many cases in recent years of farm workers being killed or seriously injured and their employer subsequently being prosecuted for health and safety breaches. Only last week a…

TB has continued to be at the top of the agricultural agenda for some time and various proposals to eradicate it have come and gone with varying levels of success and public support.  Included in some of the latest DEFRA consultations are proposals to stop the free movement of cattle from Sole Occupancy Authority (SOA) holdings…

We are now seeing, as promised, more information filtering through about the 2015 Cross Compliance regulations and the RPA have been running briefing groups throughout the country to try and put the message across and answer many of the queries agents and farmers have about the Basic Payment Scheme (BPS).  So what does it all…