Basic Payment Scheme: guidance

21. Land eligible for this scheme

You can use only eligible land to activate entitlements for payment under the Basic Payment Scheme. Eligible land under the scheme is any agricultural area of the holding used as arable land, permanent pasture or permanent crops.

Permanent pasture is land:

• used to grow grasses or other herbaceous forage, either naturally (self- seeded) or through cultivation (sown)
• not included in the crop rotation for five years or longer
• that was not taken out of production under some agri-environment scheme options.

To determine whether your land is permanent pasture for the purposes of the scheme you should consider its status on 15 May each year. This means that land will be classified as permanent pasture when declared as being in grass or herbaceous forage on six consecutive Single Application Form applications.

For example, if you first declared a parcel as being in grass on 15 May 2011 (that is, was first put down to grass some time during the period 16 May 2010 to 15 May 2011) and remains in grass on 15 May 2015 then it will be classified as permanent pasture and you should declare it as such on your 2015 Single Application Form.

Where you did not declare land on a Single Application Form, the same principle applies. That is, it will be classified as permanent pasture when it has been in grass or herbaceous forage on 15 May in six consecutive years.

Land that you have re-sown with grass or other herbaceous forage during a five-year period is still counted as permanent pasture. However, land which is in long-term grass, but which you have re-seeded following a catch crop such as stubble turnips in the last five years, is considered arable land.

Permanent crops are those defined as non-rotational crops (other than permanent pasture) that occupy land for five years or more and yield repeated harvests, including nurseries and short rotation coppice.