DEFRAyed Sums

A smallholder friend was decribing his dealings with DEFRA.

His holding is really very Small indeed – he rents a little strip of field, not that much bigger than an allotment, on which he grazes a couple of goats.

Because of this, he is legally obliged to register with DEFRA, in exchange for which they send him annually a wad of glossy colour brochures, guides and forms; enough, laid end to end with the pages separated, to paper over the plot in question. Except the goats would eat the paper.

In his first year of registration, DEFRA sent him a cheque for £3.24. Not, apparently, in recognition of any good work done by the goats, or by him. They didn’t even know about the goats, or ask what he was using the land for.

After a period of silent contemplation, DEFRA then announced that he had been underpaid for whatever they were paying him for, and forwarded a cheque for a further17 pence.

Last year, DEFRA sent him £103.44. He still has no idea why.

This means that either:
a) Whatever he was doing in the first year that so pleased DEFRA, he is now accidentally doing a great deal more of.
Or:
b) This increase represents some form of standard practice on the part of DEFRA.

If (b), then the British Smallholder has never had it so good.

Just look at the sums:
Year 1
1 x tiny strip of land = £3.41
Year 2
Same tiny strip of land = £103.44
This, if I’ve got my figures right, represents an annual increase of over 3000%
Therefore:
Year 3
Same tiny strip of land = £103.44 x 3000% average annual increase = £3,090
Year 4
Same tiny strip of land = £92,700

And so forth, until in around Year 8 he can buy his own Caribbean Island.

All this, of course, is not allowing for the profits on goats’ milk sales.

Anybody got a 30 acre field I could rent?