Bureaucracy, Subsidy in case of production failure | Bonde submitted an application four minutes late – was refused

On 1 November at 00:04, a cattle farmer submitted the application for a subsidy for feed following last year’s production failure. It turned out to be four minutes late.

Both the local agricultural office and the State Administrator in the Interior believe that the application for NOK 70,000-80,000 can be processed.

But the Norwegian Directorate of Agriculture says no, because the opportunities to get a dispensation from the rules must be “handled strictly” and that self-employed people have a special responsibility to comply with the application deadlines.

– It was marginal, just four minutes. He was unlucky, quite simply, and didn’t get attachments and the like loaded in enough time, says Robert Smelien, advisor at the agricultural office for the Lillehammer region, who was also the farmer’s local case manager.

The Nation has been in contact with the farmer earlier this week, but he does not want to make a public statement about the case, which is now being processed by the Ministry of Agriculture and Food (LMD).

Technical problems

In his application for exemption, the farmer indicated that he had experienced technical problems with the new system. He is said to have experienced problems adding the necessary attachments, and then constantly being sent back to the start page.

The problem is not unknown to the agricultural office in the region, which understands his situation:

“The fact that one is not allowed to submit the application on the basis that the system believes that the application has been filled in incorrectly or has deficiencies should speak in the applicant’s favor as the application system is new”, says their assessment.

– This year there was also a new system for this particular growth group. I have helped many other farmers with the new system, and been just as frustrated as them, says adviser Robert Smelien.

The State Administrator in the Interior points out that the exceeding of the deadline is “marginal”, and they therefore ask the Directorate of Agriculture to process the application.

The directorate has now rejected that request twice.

“U-year of the rare”

After the first refusal, the farmer sent in new information, and asked that the case be dealt with as it was about a grant that is badly needed to survive financially as a full-time farmer in a “rare down year”.

He also pointed out that the farm has experienced quite unique challenges, everything from an accident during wood splitting which meant that the kår call could not assist as before to disease in the barn, calf mortality and reduced production.

The extra workload and great mental strain meant that “the application job was postponed and postponed”, he writes.

But that did not help him in the meeting with the agricultural bureaucracy. The directorate believes that the problems with completing the application cannot be given importance, and pointed out that he only started work on the application at 23:07:

“(…) starting an application 53 minutes before the deadline expired was a matter for which the company itself had to take responsibility”, writes the directorate’s section manager.

In addition, it is therefore indicated that dispensations must be “handled strictly”, and that he, as an independent farmer, has a special responsibility to stay within the deadlines.

The local agricultural office bureaucrat, on the other hand, is more open to making an exception:

– There is a deadline that you have to adhere to, but with a new solution, you should be able to be a little more flexible this year. It was not difficult for the municipality to agree with the farmer in this matter. He had to buy feed, so the money would have legs to walk on, so to speak, says Robert Smelien.

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