Earlier this week I was having 40 winks on the sofa after a particularly hectic morning vaccinating lambs, when I was rudely awoken from my slumber by the telephone. The lady announced that she was Tiffany from BBC Radio Cornwall, and would I like to comment on the “good” news today that DEFRA (the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) had declared its intention to pay 75% of farmers their 2008 Single Farm Payment by the end of January 2009. When she learnt that I was one of many still waiting for my 2007 payment she was keen for me to do a telephone interview ready for the main 5 o’clock news.

Farming subsidies are a complex and emotive issue and they have undergone radical changes in the last few years. Previous to 2005 we were paid a set amount per cow or ewe as part of the European Common Agricultural Policy. This was set up back in 1960 to ensure that the (mainly peasant) farmers of the EU could receive a reasonable standard of living while producing reasonably priced food.

Over the decades this has proved to be an unwieldy beast and led in the 1980’s to the infamous butter mountains and wine lakes. These surpluses were not only wasteful but highly damaging to developing third world countries who were struggling to maintain their own agricultural industries. Something had to give and as the EU expanded it was apparent that this level of protectionism couldn’t be sustained.

So in 2005 we had a massive shake up, and whereas previously we had to apply for a variety of subsidy schemes (Cow Premium, Ewe Premium, Hill Livestock Compensatory Allowance) each with their own rules and tradable quotas, we were presented with a brand new, one-stop scheme which paid out per acre rather than per animal.

This was radical because it meant that farmers would receive support for environmental benefits (clean air, water and soil protection) and were not required to grow any crops or keep livestock. For us hill farmers this would mean that each cow and sheep now had to pay its own way through life and gradually over the last few years farmers have reduced herds and flocks to more sustainable levels and the prices have responded to the diminishing supply. While this has contributed to the rising food inflation, it has meant that the amount of the EU budget spent on agriculture will drop from the over 60% of the total budget in 1992 to around 30% by 2013.

On a farm level the stark truth is that while a rise in the price of beef and lamb has been welcome it has been more than matched by a rise in diesel and grain and I would say that nearly every farmer is still ‘subsidising‘ his livestock enterprise with his Single Farm Payment so some degree or the other. I pride myself in being further ahead than most in running a low input, organic, sustainable farm with a handy extra income stream from the campers, but I am still no where near being able to survive without the ‘Brown Envelope’ – (farmers jargon for the subsidy cheque).

So I had a few choice words for Tiffany - she obviously wanted a whinging farmer for this item and I gave it to her in spades, and made the headlines of the bulletin at 5. I then immediately crossed my fingers and hoped that nobody from the Rural Payments Agency was listening, lest they might slip my application to the bottom of the pile! As it happens my brown envelope was delivered the very next morning – talk about the power of radio.