An plan put forward by NFU Scotland, which would see farmers who face financial penalties falling behind in their livestock recording enlisting the help of fallen stock companies, has been put to the Scottish Government.

The most common breach of regulations, failure to properly report livestock deaths or return passports, accounted for 257 of the 359 breaches of the single farm payment subsidy scheme recorded in Scotland last year. The breaches cost farmers an estimated £500,000, which was cut from their single farm payments.

In a move it believes would reduce this cost on farmers, the union has proposed transferring the responsibility for reporting deaths of all cattle on farm and return the dead animals’ passports to the authorities to the fallen stock companies.

The company currently collects dead stock over most of mainland Scotland. NFUS said it would only be a small step to include formally notifying the authorities of the animal's death into fallen stock companies’ remits. It said taking up the service could assist Scottish farmers’ compliance with the rules and avoid incurring as many penalties.

The union laid out its proposals in a letter to the Scottish Government. It said the scheme could also be rolled out to apply to sheep farmers. NFUS President Nigel Miller said that the number of breaches last year made it clear that farmers were struggling with the amount of necessary paperwork associated with losses.

He said that, although moves are currently being made towards a passport and Paper-free electronic recording system, enabling third parties to report deaths would ensure notifications were accurate and timely and would provide herd managers with a fail-safe compliance option.

Mr Miller said, “Under a formal inspection, not notifying the authorities that cattle have died or failure in returning a cattle passport when the animal has died on farm is a major compliance issue that results in fines worth hundreds of thousands of pounds being imposed on Scottish farming support payments each year.

“This is rarely a deliberate oversight but often simply human error. By allowing third parties to report such deaths, we could cut the number of errors made, reduce Scottish farming’s annual cross-compliance penalty bill and improve the robustness of cattle traceability at the same time.”

The union proposal now awaits the Scottish Government’s acceptance. If the government supports the plan it will still require clearance from Europe.