Rural Payments and Services

Since we published our Greening booklet in October, there have been a few changes that we wanted to let you know about.

We made these changes following feedback from the European Commission and we also wanted to give you further clarity on specific topics you have raised with us.

Please have a look at the updated Greening booklet. The changes are highlighted in bold and with a green arrow on the left hand side so you can see at a glance what has been updated.

There have been a number of updates to Section four, so we would recommend you read all this section again if Ecological Focus Area (EFA) applies to you.

This version supersedes previous versions and we recommend that you use this version as guidance from now on.

Below is a summary of the main changes, along with the sections in the booklet they relate to:

Crop diversification and Ecological Focus Area (EFA) – sections three and four

This now applies to all of your holding. Previously this only applied to your claimed area.

Crop diversification and fallow – section three

For crop diversification, land in fallow that is not being used as EFA fallow must not be subject to any agricultural production in May and June.

EFA fallow – section four

There have been additional restrictions on EFA fallow regarding the change of land cover. Details of these can be found in the updated booklet.

Field margins – section four

You can now top field margins after 31 August as long as you don’t remove any grass.