Agricultural compliance

A farm answers to more rules than most businesses of its size, and to more inspectors. Livestock, crops, water, food and public payments each come with their own registers, their own checks and their own sanctions, and the obligations pile up quietly while the work of the farm goes on. Most of it is kept in order most of the time. The gaps tend to show at the worst moment: an unannounced inspection, a payment check, a buyer asking for evidence, or a neighbour’s complaint — and by then a missing record can cost a payment, a permit or a contract.

Compliance is therefore less about any one rule than about knowing where the whole farm stands before someone else checks. An audit looks at the farm the way an inspector would, and puts right what can still be put right:

• the rules on the permits, registrations and notifications a farm needs to keep animals, store fertiliser and use its buildings;
• the rules on animal welfare, animal health, and the identification and movement of livestock;
• the rules on plant protection products — which may be used, by whom, where, and how their use is recorded;
• the rules on hygiene and traceability for what leaves the farm, from milk and eggs to produce sold at the gate;
• the rules on the registers, logbooks and declarations an inspector may ask to see, and on how long they must be kept;
• the rules on inspections — what an inspector may enter, take and require, and what you may ask in return;
• the rules on the checks attached to public payments, and on what an unmet condition costs in reduced or recovered aid;
• the rules on sanctions — warnings, fines, suspended permits — and on contesting a finding you believe is wrong.

Our lawyers can support you with this.