Basic Payment Scheme: guidance

9. Entitlements

In order to receive support, you will need entitlements to claim from the Basic Payment Scheme.

For example, if you took part in the Single Farm Payment Scheme ( SFPS), meaning that you submitted a Single Application Form in 2013 and 2014 and were paid on your SFPS entitlements, you will be eligible to receive an automatic allocation of entitlements. However, to be paid on those entitlements you must make an application to 'activate' them against eligible land.

For your Basic Payment Scheme application to be valid, you must have at least three entitlements and activate them. In other words, you will need at least three hectares of eligible land to activate the entitlements.

If you are a Young Farmer (under 40 years of age) or new to farming (starting an agricultural activity in 2013 or later) you need to apply to the National Reserve. This contains the funding for your entitlements but, if successful, you will be allocated Basic Payment Scheme entitlements the same as those receiving an automatic allocation. The activation rules also apply to your entitlements.

The number of payment entitlements allocated in 2015 will equal the number of eligible hectares determined from your Single Application Form for each payment region you are involved in. For example, if we determine that you have 50 hectares in Payment Region one you will receive 50 entitlements for that region.

If you have 100 hectares in Payment Region two or three, or a combination of both, you will receive 90 entitlements for those regions. This is because a reduction co-efficient of 10 per cent will be applied to eligible hectares declared in those regions.