Grants and subsidies to the agricultural sector (FOI)

Request

A recent Freedom of Information (FOI) response gave details of payments made under the dairy herd reduction scheme.

Reduction of dairy herds (FOI)

I should like to know about all other payments made to the agricultural sector (farmers or growers) in the past 20 years.

This could be in the form of subsidies or other payments for improving or upgrading the standards of the soil or quality of the products, animal feeds, education, employment and training of staff engaged in agricultural activities, costs incurred in slaughtering animals and disposing of waste products including any veterinary expenses.

I am wanting to know in total what payments, either directly or indirectly, the agricultural sector in Jersey receives from the public purse.

Response

The information you have requested is partially exempt under Article 23 (Accessible by other means) of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 as the information is already accessible to you on www.gov.je within previous Freedom of Information responses.

However, the attached spreadsheet provides information regarding grants and other payments made within the agricultural sector for the period from 2008 to 2018.

Payments for period 1999-2019

We have provided the net running costs for the Abattoir, Knackers Yard and Animal Cremator however these facilities are also used by other sectors; therefore the subsidy is not wholly to the agriculture sector.

Please note that not all of the payments made under the Countryside Renewal Scheme were to farmers as some non-governmental organisations such as National Trust were funded.

We have provided the budget forecast figure in a number of cases as highlighted where the actual cost could not be provided within the allowed time limit.

We estimate that it will take us in excess of the 12.5 working hours allowed for Freedom of Information responses in accordance with Regulation 2 (1) of the Freedom of Information (Costs) (Jersey) Regulations 2014 to provide any further breakdown of the information from 1998 to 2007 and extract the actual figures previously mentioned.

We have provided links to documents which provide supplemental information, however, we are not able to provide a more detailed breakdown in the time allowed for Freedom of Information requests.

Please note that some of the figures may have been combined in the reports and we are not able to provide further breakdowns in the time allowed for Freedom of Information requests.

Rural Economy strategy 2017-2021 (from page xxviii onwards)

States of Jersey Accounts and Annual Report

An example of the type of information included is located on p74 of the 2018 accounts

2018 Annual Report and Accounts

Articles applied

Article 16 A scheduled public authority may refuse to supply information if cost excessive

(1) A scheduled public authority that has been requested to supply information may refuse to supply the information if it estimates that the cost of doing so would exceed an amount determined in the manner prescribed by Regulations.

Regulation 2 (1) of the Freedom of Information (Costs) (Jersey) Regulations 2014 allows an authority to refuse a request for information where the estimated cost of dealing with the request would exceed the specified amount of the cost limit of £500. This is the estimated cost of one person spending 12.5 working hours in determining whether the department holds the information, locating, retrieving and extracting the information.

Article 23 Information accessible to applicant by other means

(1) Information is absolutely exempt information if it is reasonably available to the applicant, otherwise than under this Law, whether or not free of charge.

(2) A scheduled public authority that refuses an application for information on this ground must make reasonable efforts to inform the applicant where the applicant may obtain the information.