FARMERS are cashing pensions, running up huge debts and having essential services cut off because of delays in paying out the single payment scheme.

Renny Wodynska, director of Rural Stress Information Network, said the crisis was worse than foot-and-mouth. 'The whole system is in meltdown. We have people struggling to get food on the table. Twenty to 30 dairy farmers are exiting every week but people are unaware of it because it is invisible.' The number of farmers seeking help from the helpline – many of them in dire financial distress – has risen 50 per cent last year. Farmers were assured that payments for 2005 – varying between £19,000 to £90,000 – would come through at the end of last year. But computer problems, management reorganisation and the complicated forms have led to delay after delay. To date the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) has only paid out 39 per cent of the total 120,000 claims – less than a quarter of the £1.5 billion overall pot. Last week, Margaret Beckett, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, announced in a written statement that farmers now may have to wait until the end of June. Stephen Dennis, SW co-ordinator of the Farmers Crisis Network, said that he had heard of farmers having electricity and water cut off and that others were coming under pressure from credit card companies. The number of farmers seeking help from the Farmers' Crisis Network in the south west rose 65 per cent in the first three months of this year. The hold-up in payments is not just affecting farmers but also suppliers. Mike Churchward, director of Edwin Tucker & Sons in Ashburton, said that 10 farmers had asked for extra time in paying bills for fertiliser and seeds. 'The debt per individual is £2-3,000. Obviously it is going to mean we will be borrowing more money than we would normally.' Meanwhile, farmers are under pressure to get their 2006 claims in by May 15 or face financial penalties. Mr Churchward said that several farmers have received forms that are either blank or with incorrect information. The Single Payment Scheme replaced 10 CAP schemes and is supposed to encourage farmers to be more entrepreneurial by breaking the link between subsidies and production, rewarding farmers instead for their stewardship of the environment. NFU communications director, Anthony Gibson, said that a contributory cause for the delays was the complicated model being used to assess claims. 'The environmental organisations lobbied for regional average payments rather than paying out on a historical basis,' he said. While sympathetic to the aim of spreading the subsidies more widely, he said the RPA grossly underestimated the complexities involved. 'The people who are responsible for the computer systems carry a large part of the blame.' On top of that the RPA issued 22,000 farmers with new identity numbers and underwent a reorganisation, resulting in redundancies. 'The result was completely predictable and turned into the disaster that was almost inevitable,' he said.