HARD-pressed farmers are still owed tens of thousands of pounds each in EU subsidies after a series of missed deadlines the latest of which was has just passed.

Rob Vearncombe, a 53-year-old dairy farmer from Kimmeridge, has not received his government subsidy for 18 months. He is owed £45,000, and has a stack of bills waiting to be paid.

He should have been paid in December. Then he was promised April. The final deadline set by the European Union was last Friday, but there are rumours he could be waiting until Christmas.

"It's a total disaster," says Mr Vearncombe. "My business only just breaks even as it is, and I have a ton of people waiting to be paid. I can only go begging to the bank so many times."

His claim is one of 18,648 that have failed to appear since the Rural Payments Agency, an off-shoot of Defra, tried to implement the new EU system last year, rewarding farmers for the land they maintain rather than what they produce.

Quentin Straghn, a lawyer representing Dorset farmers, said: "Other Europeans saw this coming. France have delayed implementing the system for a year. Ireland made up-front payments of 80 per cent to tide people over. Only England tried to do everything at once and it's a disaster."

Matters worsened when CCTV images appeared in a Newcastle newspaper allegedly showing civil servants at the Rural Payments Agency taking drugs and having sex in toilets, holding break-dancing competitions in reception, and vomiting into mugs which were then hidden round the office.

"We had been asking ourselves what the hell the RPA have been doing all this time," says Mr Vearncombe. "Then we found out.

"We never wanted subsidies in the first place they only prop up the low prices we receive from supermarkets. They've been forced on us, and now we rely on them."

From Saturday, the EU will start fining Britain for its failure thought to be around £10 million per month a cost that falls on the tax payer.

Speaking recently, rural minister David Miliband said: "This year's problems have caused real distress and I repeat the apology to farmers I have made before. We will be looking to take interim steps to aid the recovery process and improve the experience of farmers dealing with the agency to the maximum possible extent."