Single farm payment clarification ONE of the major outstanding worries for farmers and landowners of the new Single Farm Payment has been clarified this week.

From January 1, 2005, all production-linked subsidies for farms will end and be replaced by the new Single Farm Payment (SFP) which is based on a farmers' land area. This has led to a lot of discussion among farmers and landowners as to how they can overcome the problem of letting a grazier on their land, while avoiding losing any rights they may have to the SPS.

Helen Lancaster, the northern regionalsurveyor of the Country Land and Business Association, said that after extensive discussions with the Department for Environment and Rural Affairs, the CLA had now developed, for its members, a new form of grazing agreement that should allow an English landowner to let land for grazing in 2005 and still claim the Single Farm Payment. If it has already been agreed that the grazier should be the SFP claimant, then the CLA says that this would be best done by a Farm Business Tenancy of ten months or more, remembering that once established, SFP entitlements are personal to the claimant, and therefore carry the risk that a claimant may leave a holding taking the entitlement with them. Ms Lancaster said the clarification brought a major area of uncertainty to an end.

Attractive' proposition FARMERS across South Cumbria are being targeted by a national energy group on the lookout for fresh sites for windfarms.

For Lake District hillfarmers it offers the ultimate in low maintenance farming, demanding only air and certainly no food, water or a cattle passport. But taking-up the invitation of Npower Renewables which runs the Kirkby-in-Furness and Lambrigg windfarms - could put even the most popular farmer at loggerheads with the neighbours.

So to tempt landowners to run the gauntlet and turn their land into a green-power producer, Npower is pointing out the advantages in a national advertising campaign.

Npower spokesman Patrick Spink said: "We develop the site, operate the site and decommission the site. They just have to sit there and let the rent roll in."