The recent programme on Panorama about farming subsidies and in particular in their opinion how farmers/businessmen could claim Single Farm Payment without doing anything, created quite a storm.
The ensuing days following the programme led to a flurry of phone calls from investors, city businessmen and all and sundry thinking they could purchase entitlements and obtain a subsidy with doing anything.
The basic fact of matching entitlements with land was missed, the issues of cross compliance had not sunk in and indeed one classic phone call, the potential purchaser of entitlements wanted to know where he was purchasing them from, so that he would know what land was available for him to go and shoot on.
Aside from the flurry of activity the programme created from those without any particular knowledge, the trade on entitlements this year has seen more activity than previous years, with the volume traded within the Rostons office increased. Siwan Roberts of Rostons, who has been trading entitlements all year, commented that we had seen demand from purchasers looking for large areas where there have been changes in tenancy or land ownership and also smaller lots where people still haven’t got entitlements for all their land and wish to take advantage of the excellent returns that can be gained.
This year, as many years, it was only into February that entitlements flowed onto the market in substantial volumes.
If you have a requirement to either sell or purchase entitlements, be aware that the deadline for transfers is 2nd April 2012 and therefore the sooner the entitlements are placed on the market, or purchased, the better.