AGRICULTURAL suppliers in York and North and East Yorkshire are now feeling the pinch, as desperate farmers in the region wait for late payments from the Government.

As farmers take out extended overdrafts or take on second jobs while they await promised payments under the Single Payment Scheme, suppliers say the resulting administrative shambles is already beginning to impact on profits.

Jonathan Cockhill, director of Argrain Ltd, grain merchant and feed suppliers in Raskelf, said: "The lack of money coming into the hands of farmers obviously impacts on us.

"As suppliers, we get no grants or compensation and, at the end of the day, it is bound to impact on the bottom line.

"We are very keen that they should get the payments because, ultimately, they will use it to buy our grain, but it is obviously affecting our cash flow as well as the mood of the agricultural community."

Meanwhile, farmers in the region today called for "heads to roll" over the Government's delayed payments under the agricultural reform scheme.

A year after the Government set up its implementation programme, only 23 per cent of farmers have received their entitlements in spite of insistence that most of the payments would be made by the end of March.

A York National Farmers' Union statement points out this is in stark contrast to the rest of Europe, where 98 per cent of payments were completed before Christmas.

The statement said: "The result is that thousands of farmers in Yorkshire are in an increasingly difficult position, with bills mounting up and the traditional time for landlords to review farm rent levels approaching fast."

Farmer Rosey Dunn, York East representative of the NFU, who farms 112 acres of beef, sheep, beet and arable at North Garlton, near Stockton-on-Forest, said the lack of payment meant extending her overdraft for a year from last October - contributing to the agricultural borrowing which has hit the £10 billion mark.

She and her husband, Alisdair, have both taken on extra work to fund the farm, he as a lorry driver and she has taken a part-time job at a local auction mart. She said: "If the boot was on the other foot and we ran our business as badly as Margaret Beckett, the Agricultural Secretary, is running the implementation programme, she would be telling us that we deserve all we get."

Robert Patchett, York East county chairman for the NFU, said: "Even though the head of the Rural Payments Agency has now been replaced, we feel that Agriculture Minister Lord Bach and Margaret Beckett should step down."

Updated: 10:24 Tuesday, April 04, 2006