Challenging your Entitlements

CHALLENGING YOUR ENTITLEMENTS

You may be entitled to challenge your entitlements if your farming activity was adversely affected during the reference period (2000-2002) and the subsidy received was reduced, due to either:

Force majeure/exceptional circumstances;
Participation in an Agri-Environment Scheme (full details of this are set out in Information Leaflet 4); or
You were a new entrant to farming during that period.

For the first two categories, you can ask us to re-calculate your entitlements using the individual schemes that were unaffected.

If any scheme or all schemes were affected in all 3 years of the reference period and your request is successful we will offer you an alternative reference period of 1997-1999. Please note we cannot add in additional hectares or animals, the affected scheme/schemes can only be removed from your calculation.

If you were a new entrant to farming during the reference period, you can ask us to remove the year(s) where you did not submit any subsidy claims. We can only do this if you or any partner/partners involved in the business or directors of any limited company were not involved in a farming business which carried out an agricultural activity in the five years prior to the setting up of the business. An agricultural activity is the production, rearing and growing of agricultural products including harvesting, milking, breeding animals, and the keeping of animals for farming purposes. It also includes activity in an unsupported sector and participation in the Agri-environment schemes.

The deadline for submitting Challenges to Area Offices is 16 May 2005.

Challenges are currently being processed at Area Offices, you can view the statistics of how many have been received, how many have been upheld and rejected and how many are outstanding below: