Mr. Michael Lambert:

There is no problem at all with health and safety on a conventional farm with bedding slats with straw. If a person turns to organic farming, it is a health and safety issue. Why is it a health and safety issue with organic farming but not with conventional farming?

There is one thing that I would like the Department to be asked. We fill out our documentation, like all other farmers, in May. A lot of the stuff that would be sent in would be the same every year and there would be no changes, yet by the end of the year and the time comes for payments, all these problems crop up. There are five, six or seven months of the year in which these problems could be addressed. Inspections, spot checks and so on are necessary. There have been situations that I know have happened, on the organic scheme or other schemes, where we have been told that we would be paid in November, and yet they would stage an inspection in December and we would not be paid. If there was a problem with that inspection, it would hold up everything.

We cannot understand why one is not paid because a penalty can be clawed back in the next two or three years. Nine times out of ten there is no penalty. I do not know why the Department uses this system. Why are payments not streamlined? The Department has enough experience of the system to solve problems as they occur yet this problem arises every year.