Common Agricultural Policy Reform - The "Active Farmer" Test

In the first instalment of our trilogy of 'Briefing Notes on the current draft Common Agricultural Policy Reform' we have looked at the possible legal implications of the introduction of the "Golden Ticket" for claimants of the successor to the Single Payment Scheme, the Basic Payment. In this issue, our focus is on the inclusion of an "Active Farmer" test and the implied legal tasks that will be thrown up by its introduction.

While the Active Farmer test has been well publicised and written about, as a reminder the proposed draft of the Common Agricultural Policy reform that was released last autumn requires a claimant of the Basic Payment to be actively farming; in contrast to the current requirement that a Single Payment Scheme claimant "exercises an agricultural activity". The draft reform sets out a two part test to determine whether a claimant is actively farming which will apply to claimants who claim more than 5,000 Euros a year.