S.L. 639.10 Art. 4Categorising commercial holdings.  

(1) By the end of March of every year the Director shall categorise each commercial holding into one (1) of the four (4)

categories of derived annual income from the farm according to the standard output data of such commercial holding as available to the Ministry. In categorising a holding, the Director shall where data is made available to the Directorate by the fiscal authorities and the relevant competent authorities, take into consideration the sales or turnover linked to the primary production of the commercial holding:

Provided that the Director shall ensure that such turnover is proportionate to the size of the commercial holding, and that the extent of the agricultural land, infrastructure and, or livestock of the commercial holding is reasonably capable of generating the declared output.

(2) The categorisation shall be based on the data of the previous years and shall take into account cycles in which the particular agricultural product was made available to the market during the year.

(3) The Director shall categorise the commercial holding according to sub-regulation (1) by attributing the categorisation on the basis of the previous year and by attributing the categorisation of the average of the three (3) years preceding the year of categorisation.The categorisation assigned to a holding shall be made available through an online system administered by the Directorate and shall be accessible by means of reserved access to the registered head of holding, as recorded in the official register maintained by the Directorate.

(4) A farmer may request re-categorisation through the submission of a a request to the Board, by making a declaration duly proving the agricultural holding’s productivity of the year for which the holding has been categorised, and by submitting additional documentation to prove the income generated from the agricultural holding:

Provided that no request for re-categorisation shall be considered if the farmer who makes the request does not provide the Board with the information requested by the said Board: Provided further that the Board may make use of the benchmarks referred to in regulation 3:

Provided further that the Board may obtain any information on agricultural holdings affected by this regulation that is in the possession of the Ministry, and all persons concerned shall be obliged to provide such information to the Board for the purposes of this regulation.