The purpose of this final project is to explain how farmers experience their mastering of the single payment system that was put in place in 2006. The final project was carried out with e-survey, which was answered by 30 farmers from the area of Laukaa co-operation area. The e-survey was ordered by the person who is in charge of the single payment system at local ELY-center. The main research questions were: How the farmers of the area feel that they master the single payment system and how they wish to get the information about the system in the future. It was also studied how the different variables like the size of the farm affect the farmers´ awareness of the single payment system.

As for research methods both quantitative and qualitative were used. In the survey farmers gave grades of their own knowledge on scale from 1 (I haven’t heard about this before) to 5 (excellent knowledge). According to the averages calculated from the answers, the farmers had worst knowledge on topics that were related to the functioning of the national reserve. The best knowledge farmers had on affairs that were related to areas of eligibility. The average grade of all answers was 2,8. As the value of 3 being considered as moderate knowledge, it can be said that there are some lack of information in the handling of the single payment system on whole.

The answers of the open-ended questions were grouped on the basis of the themes repeated on them. The qualitative analysis of the answers supported the findings that were made out of the multiple-choice questions. There were some repeated themes in the answers, for example the “complexity of the system.” Most of the farmers told that they would like their information through training sessions and seminars. The farmers were also open for all the other methods of information given, but the main subject was that they wanted it to be easier to understand.