DEFRA has explained how farmers will receive their single farm payment when they have land in more than one designated region.

The regions are Scotland, Wales, and Ireland and, within England, the land within the moorland line in the upland severely disadvantaged area (SDA), other upland SDA and land outside the upland SDA.

Only one application is needed to claim the single payment and farmers with land in more than one country should apply to the agency in the country where most of their land lies.

For crop-based schemes, the position is straightforward with the historic reference data apportioned on the basis of where crops were grown during the reference period.

However, as farmers are not required to record the location of stock, the reference data for livestock schemes will be apportioned on the basis of the location of the declared forage area for the reference period.

For dairy payments, a similar calculation will apply, based on the forage area declared in 2005.

Lord Whitty, Farming Minister, said: "The new scheme simplifies the ten main existing subsidies under one umbrella and will considerably reduce the administrative burden for farmers."

The forage area method would, however, not apply to the moorland area within the SDA/other SDA boundary.

"To do so would result in a redistribution of subsidy into the more extensively grazed SDA moorland area of England, leading to unwarranted windfalls for those holding large areas of relatively unproductive land," said Lord Whitty.

Instead, a notional stocking rate of 1.5 ewes per hectare will be applied to the SDA moorland area of England.

An amount of livestock data equivalent to this for the average moorland held during the reference period will be allocated after any allocation for Welsh, Scottish or Northern Irish forage land. The remaining reference amount will be allocated to the other English areas on a pro-rata basis.

Lord Whitty said this method of distribution would not affect the total value of entitlements for an individual holding, just how the historical element was distributed