A LONG JOURNEY BACK Anything for weeks – how pandemic has hit farmers hard JOURNEY BACK
Isolation for some has got worse and many have not sold anything for weeks – how pandemic has hit farmers hard
ACROSS Wales, towns and cities continue to exist in a desolate state, nine weeks into the Welsh coronavirus lockdown.
Streets are empty, while shops, once housing rampant consumers imprinting their mark on the economy, are closed. Inside, the e staff that aren’t there are manag- ing to survive thanks to a govern- ment scheme which poses ques- tions about our futures, but at t least puts food on our tables.
There are other people in Wales, s, however, who we don’t necessarily y think about when we amble le through the desert of our local town, city or village. There are those whose landscapes have not changed, to the eye.
But farming in Wales has changed. People are genuinely worried, and as the isolation once e embraced by those in rural settings has become more intense, many of the avenues down which h farmers normally make their r money have been closed off, with h no date in mind for the grand reopening.
The worry is real. After all, you can’t furlough farming.
Ian Clatworthy lives on Berry
Hill Farm, situated in glorious countryside between Cardiff and Newport.
Like many farms these days, it has a farm shop, which sells everything from potatoes and onions to steaks and sausages. . Well, until March anyway.
“The lockdown has had a huge impact,” said Ian.
“Mum and Dad, who are in their 70s, run the farm shop, and because of social distancing and all the new guidelines, they have had to reduce their hours. We were open five days a week, now we open 12 hours a week.
“People now have to phone their orders through beforehand and arrange to come and collect the produce. We’re not t eligible for any self employed d business grants, and I would say y we’ve seen a reduction in turno- ver of about 65%.
“When the lockdown came in, n we sold the meat that we had fresh and that was it – we haven’t ’t sold any since March.”
Mr Clatworthy himself is able to supplement his income from other business interests, but his time on the farm is mainly taken up with livestock.
He says he is fortunate to be able to regard that side of things as “a hobby”, but of a more pressing concern is when the farm will – if it will – return to some form of normality.
He and his family have plans for the autumn.
They want to invite families along to Berry Hill Farm to enjoy lambing and to take part in pumpkin picking.
That may not be possible now, and it certainly won’t be if the autumn sees the emergence of the dreaded “second spike” of coronavirus.
“As a family it’s going to be a challenging time moving forward, and everyone in the industry is really worried about a second spike,” spike” he admitted.
“Foot and mouth was absolutely catastrophic for farming, and while this has not had the same impact day to day, with livestock prices changing and farmers being unable to do any real forward planning, there are a lot of people who are really struggling.
“The farming population is ageing as well, and another lockdown could cause real trauma, even more than we’ve seen already.”
The Welsh Government has announced a number of emergency measures to support farmers during the coronavirus outbreak, including a deadline extension to the window in which they must claim payments under various schemes.
Back in April, things were even more bleak and uncertain than they are ar today, as dairy farmers fa were left with no option but to pour away ,th thousands of d li litres of fresh milk
– together with a chunk of profit p and countless working hours – straight down the drain.
Llyr Griffiths, a Ceredigion dairy farmer, said the only option was to borrow money and plough through a storm of uncertainty described by his grandmother as “worse than war time” – a storm that even presented the idea of selling up for good and starting a new life.
On May 9 the Welsh Government announced grants of up to £10,000 for dairy farmers who have lost more than a quarter of their income in April and May, with the Welsh Minister for Environment, Energy and Rural Affairs admitting the coronavirus lockdown had caused an “immediate and significant impact” on the sector.
However, three weeks after that announcement, Mr Griffiths said the financial help on offer is a “drop in the ocean”. While companies are collecting milk from farms again, the price they are receiving for every last drop of it has hit the floor.
“We’re getting 6p a litre less than we were before coronavirus,” he said. “Compared to this time last year, it’s 10p less, and we didn’t make much of a profit last year.
“We’ve had no choice but to carry on and try to save money where we can, but with dairy farming in particular, there are so many costs – feed, labour, rented ground, it’s endless. And if you start cutting costs everything gets affected, so you can’t, basically. We just have to carry on as normal.
“If the price does not go back up at some point it could be a dire situation. We can now apply for a grant but it’s a drop in the ocean when you’ve lost thousands of pounds. Everything helps, but it certainly isn’t a game changer.”
Despite the ongoing uncertainty, one family has actually seen an improvement in their situation because, simply, more people are buying what they’re selling. While supermarkets have remained open throughout the crisis, lockdown has, it seems, opened the consumer’s eyes to local produce straight from their local farm.
Neil Johnson was born in Pembrokeshire, moved to New Zealand as a child, and now runs Pantglas Farm in Rudry near Caerphilly. Married with five children, he certainly doesn’t regret moving from a terraced house in Cardiff to take over the farm in 2016.
“We are quite a small farm, we run about 50 acres, with a small herd and a small flock,” said Mr Johnson, who, along with his wife Rebecca, is currently juggling farming demands with the equally tough if not tougher task of home schooling.
“We breed cattle which are then slaughtered, cut and packed before being distributed to our customers, and at the moment it’s much easier to sell the meat. The main thing it has affected is our ability to deliver – we are not delivering beyond the local area because it’s not feasible.
“But we’re in a slightly better situa
tion than last year because I think people are obviously more conscious about travel and where they get their meat from, and also I think a lot of people just want to buy local; they want to have that relationship with a local supplier – they know it’s better than what they can get in the supermarket.”
So Neil and his wife – when she is not working in her other job – deliver meat through their business, Rhydri Fresh, to customers within a fivemile radius, after it has been cut and packaged at a local abattoir.
“A lot of our business model is really based on close relationships with most of our customers,” added Mr Johnson.
“They know us and we know which people enjoy different kinds of meat, be it lamb or beef.
“As for the industry as a whole, in the short-term I am concerned because when big changes come in quickly people can get caught short and things can be hard. But we have always tried to operate a simple system that gives people what they want.
“There are concerns of course because of the changes brought about by the lockdown, but people will always need food and we will always find a way.”
In North Wales, on a farm near Betws y Coed, Glyn Roberts continues to go about his day in much the same way as he has done for decades, having been in the game for more than 40 years.
While the price of beef has fluctuated in the past two months, he says the collaboration between the farming unions, the Welsh Government and the major supermarkets has helped to calm that particular ticular fear. He’s also steadfast adfast in his belief that t the farming industry is a resilient beast that t will never die.
“The The supermarkets are actually selling more re steaks now than at the same time last year,” said d Mr Roberts, who is president sident of the Farmers’ mers’ Union of Wales.
“The customers tend to dictate what they sell usually but because we have all worked together they have displayed quality cuts of meat – like steaks for example – on the shelves where people can see them, while they’ve also been quite active in promoting the sale of those cuts.
“I’m sure that we, as an industry, will get through this. We came through BSE, and we came through foot and mouth. What this whole pandemic has shown is that people realise the importance importanc of farming and agriculture. Before this I believe a lot of people didn’t know where their food was coming from from, but that has now change changed.
“Food is one of the most imp important commodities, and an if we didn’t produce food in this country, where wo would we be?” This reliance relian on local Welsh produce has helped farmers like Mr Roberts continue to trade during the coronavirus pa pandemic, but of greater concern to him is another potential crisis, one less visible: the mental health of farmers.
He himself has not seen one of his sons since February, but counts himself lucky that he does not live alone in his remote surroundings. Others are less fortunate.
Farming, by its nature, is based in isolation.
Mr Roberts fears many farmers may not be opening up and talking, a situation which could worsen later in the year if Wales fails to strike the right balance between the needs of the economy and public health.
The key, as ever, is to communicate. To talk.
“We haven’t seen members of our family or our friends for weeks, months even,” he said. “People are isolated because they can’t go to the market and they can’t go to different shows, which would normally be a highlight at this time of the year.
“Some are luckier than others, but I know there will be some who live on their own and, honestly, my heart bleeds for them. There is still a stigma around mental health, although there is a far greater awareness of the problem today.
“Talking to someone is the most important step. When you share something you feel better, and it could lead you to realise that the problem is not your problem alone.”
Mr Roberts does concede that if there is another wave of new coronavirus cases in Wales over the coming winter, it could have a greater “psychological effect” on people – people who have worked tirelessly to protect and safeguard their livelihoods and to create a pathway back to the social routines that they loved and now yearn for.
“We all want to get back to normal, but it’s vital that we don’t get back to normal too quickly,” he said.
In the rural parts of Wales where farms and the families that tend to them have lived and thrived for generations, it’s unlikely that the journey back to normality will happen in 2020.
While some have been able to withstand the turmoil more than others, normality for most may never return.