Paragraph 1 I1

Northern Ireland Not yet in force

A farmer shall be entitled to claim set-aside compensatory payment on land which he has not farmed for a period of two years prior to the commencement of the set-aside period where:

(a)

during the specified period, he—

(i)

inherited the land or succeeded to a tenancy from year to year of it; or

(ii)

having owned the land for at least two years at the commencement of the set-aside period, commenced farming it following the termination of an agreement with another farmer under which that other farmer farmed the land;

(b)

the land forms part of a unit of agricultural land of which he acquired ownership or relevant tenure during the specified period—

(i)

in a single transaction; or

(ii)

in more than one transaction and the land thereby acquired formed part of the same unit of agricultural land immediately prior to the first such transaction; and—

(aa)

in the case that the unit does not comprise his entire holding, he sets aside no more of it than he would be required to do under the set-aside requirement if that unit comprised his entire holding and the set-aside requirement applied to it; or

(bb)

in the case that the unit does comprise his entire holding, he sets aside no more of it than he is required to do under the set-aside requirement;

(c)

during the specified period he acquired ownership or relevant tenure of the land and at the commencement of the set-aside period he owned, or occupied under relevant tenure, (other than a tenancy which is less than a tenancy from year to year) no more than fifteen hectares of other agricultural land;

(d)

although he is the farmer of the land, he let the land to another person for a period of less than two years within that part of the specified period which preceded the set-aside period;

(e)

more than 10 per cent of the eligible land farmed by him is normally farmed under one or more sharefarming arrangements or held by him under licence and the land farmed by him under those arrangements or licence is situated in the vicinity of the other land farmed by him, and can be reasonably farmed as a single unit with such other land; or

(f)

he is an accepted organic farmer; or

(g)

he occupied or contracted to occupy the land before 12th December 1997, and—

(i)

the land forms part of a unit of at least sixty hectares of agricultural land of which he acquired ownership or relevant tenure during the specified period—

(aa)

in a single transaction; or

(bb)

in more than one transaction and the land thereby acquired formed part of the same unit of agricultural land immediately prior to the first such transaction;

(ii)

the eligible land which he farms within any particular production region (as specified in regulation 3(1)) (and which he is entitled to set aside under Article 7 of Council Regulation 1765/92 and Commission Regulation 762/94) is insufficient to be able to satisfy the set-aside requirement in respect of the total area on which he claims a compensatory payment (in which case he may set aside such additional eligible land within that production region as is necessary to enable him to comply with the set-aside requirement referred to above).

Annotations

Commencement

I1: Sch. 1 para. 1 in operation at 12.12.1997, see reg. 1