Seymour Crawford (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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Question 220: To ask the Minister for Agriculture and Food the steps she is taking to address the burden of cross compliance; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [32734/06]

Mary Coughlan (Donegal South West, Fianna Fail)
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Cross compliance involves two key elements:

A requirement for farmers to comply with 18 statutory management requirements (SMRs) set down in EU legislation on the environment, food safety, animal health, welfare and plant health,

A requirement to maintain the farm in good agricultural and environmental condition (GAEC).

If an applicant is found to be non-compliant sanctions are provided for in the governing EU regulations and those sanctions will be applied to the applicants Single Payment. The rate of on-farm inspection required for cross-compliance is 1% of those farmers to whom the Statutory Management Requirements or GAEC apply. However at least 5% of producers must be inspected under the Bovine Animal Identification and Registration requirements as this level is prescribed under the relevant Regulations.

In the context of discussions with the farm bodies my Department has adopted a weighting system and has invested a significant amount of time and resources (both administrative and IT) in developing this system for cross-compliance inspections where due account has to be taken of infringements of the cross-compliance requirements which are, on their own, inadvertent and minor in nature, do not result from negligence of the farmer and are capable of occurring in practical farming situations. In such circumstances a certain level of tolerance is applied while, at the same time, the farmer is notified of the infringement.

In implementing the Single Payment Scheme, the policy of the Department is to minimise the number of inspection visits and to move towards a situation where, in most cases, all eligibility and cross-compliance checks will be carried out during a single farm visit. The Department is committed to ensuring the maximum level of integration of inspections across all areas including inspections under the Disadvantaged Areas' Compensatory Allowance Scheme. On this basis my Department estimates that, in all, over 8,000 farmers will be inspected annually under the Single Payment Scheme. This represents more than 50% reduction in the number of inspections when compared to the old coupled regime.

My Department is in constant contact with the EU Commission with a view to the need for further simplification and with particular reference to advance notice of inspections and tolerances.