By Ewan Pate, farming editor

FARMERS ALL over Scotland will have received their 2005 IACS forms.

Some very well organised individuals may have already filled theirs in and returned them to SEERAD, but the majority will still be lying around the farm office. Some might even still be unopened in the envelope.

None of this would worry NFUS policy director Scott Walker but he has warned, “Whatever you do, make sure these forms are returned properly filled in by May 16.

“Also, make sure you have a receipt.

“If you are delivering to SEERAD offices a receipt will be filled in there and then.

“If you post the forms, check that a receipt has come back within a week. If it hasn’t, get on the phone.”

There is good reason for Mr Walker to give this advice.

IACS forms have always been important but this year’s one is absolutely crucial, as it is the first to be made under the single farm payment regime.

Failure to lodge a claim this year will rule out any future claims without any right of appeal.

Even though the claim is for as little as 0.3 of a hectare, it will still count.

Mr Walker and other senior staff from NFUS were speaking at a briefing in their Ingliston office where they took the chance to clarify some of the issues which have predominated in the thousands of calls made to their SFP hotline in recent weeks.

The system of entitlements is generally understood, but according to chief executive Andy Robertson there is some confusion about how they can be activated.

Each farmer’s allocation will be numbered, for example a 99-hectare farm might have 99 entitlements numbered 1 to 99.

Over the next three years it would be possible to claim on only a third of these each year, say 1 to 33 in year one, 34 to 66 in year two and the remainder in year three.

As long as the entitlements are identified and used at least once in the first three years they will not be lost to the National Reserve.

Once they have all been used, and not before then, they can be traded.

One other method of ensuring that entitlements are not lost is through consolidation.

According to Scott Walker this has generated more queries than anything else.

It allows the many farmers who are farming a smaller acreage than in the reference years of 2000 to 2002 to have fewer entitlements but of a higher value.

As an example, this might be because of a loss of rented grazing.

The application for this is actually rather easy and is done simply by ticking the right boxes on page three of the IACS application form.

This should be suitable incentive for those who still have to actually open the envelope.

There are eight categories of farmers who can apply to the National Reserve for entitlements and others who can challenge the size of their entitlements.

Up until now there have been no fewer than 2800 challenges or requests and SEERAD, to its credit, has already processed 2400 of these.

NFUS is urging those who still mean to make applications to the National Reserve or to make challenges to do so now.

The deadline has been extended to May 16 but there are two very good reasons why action should not be delayed.

Firstly, it will be very beneficial for a farmer to know what his entitlements are before the IACS form is completed.

The second reason for haste is more complicated.

Rural Affairs Minister Ross Finnie has expressed the intention to make the first single farm payment as near as possible to December 1.

SEERAD staff have also stated that this should be possible.

Farmers, and their bankers, of course, are dreading any delay which could stretch as far into the future as June 2006.

The only obvious thing that could delay payment would be applications to the National Reserve.

Scotland has allowed for a 3% deduction from all SFPs to cover these but if, as is quite likely, that proves to be not enough, then the English reserve pool will be drawn on. This could well cause a delay.

If this scenario develops, the NFUS will be pushing for a 90% payment to account in Scotland until the situation becomes clear.

Trading of entitlements will be a fact of life after May 16 but Mr Robertson reminded those who intend to dispose of them by leasing that they can only do so if the equivalent number of hectares is also leased. Sales of entitlement can be separate from land.

As every day goes by another aspect of the new farm support regime becomes clearer, but there is no doubt that it will be some time before the NFUS hotline has a chance to cool down.