Single Payment Scheme - Scheme Details

Scheme Details

The Single Payment Scheme (SPS) pays farmers for the land that they manage or own. Farmers can submit a claim for each year based on their land and their entitlements. Entitlements are the farmer’s ‘right’ to claim. In order to gain these rights, farmers had to make a successful claim during the first year of SPS or purchase them from another farmer.

In order for farmers to qualify for payments under the scheme, they have to follow certain conditions and rules;

• their holdings must be at least 0.3 hectare and used for an agricultural activity;

• their land must be at their disposal for a period of ten months;

• they may have to set-aside a proportion of their land depending on their holding size and crops grown; and

• they must meet Cross Compliance standards. These cover environment, food safety and animal health and welfare law (and good practices). The two main areas are:

– Statutory Management Requirements (SMRs) set out in EU legislation --> for a list of the 18 requirements, using Scotland as an example, see

– keeping land in Good Agricultural and Environmental Condition (GAEC)

SPS is managed under IACS (Integrated Administration and Control System), the EC (European Community) system for administering schemes to prevent fraud. The total amount that can be paid for SPS is set at EU Member State level and is called the National Ceiling. A percentage of the National Ceiling is removed to make up the National Reserve. All payments then have a further amounts taken off (EU modulation and national modulation) which are set at the European and national levels respectively. For EU modulation, the rates are 3% in 2005, 4% in 2006 and 5% from 2007 onwards. All farmers have the first €5,000 of their payments exempted from EU modulation. Calculation of payment to each applicant is complicated by the fact that the total fund value is set and must be divided amongst all the applicants. Thus no payment can be calculated until all claims have been verified.