‘OUR FUTURE IS UNCERTAIN’ – WELSH FARMERS GIVE THEIR VERDICT ON BREXIT
The crowds – and the politicians – turned out for the first day of the Royal Welsh Show yesterday, but amid the sunshine, uncertainty over the shape of a post-Brexit agricultural industry cast a cloud. Farming editor Chris Kelsey reports from the showgrou
> Cattle are given a thorough clean before being shown in competition at the Royal Welsh Show yesterday
THE sun came out for the thousands of visitors who flocked to the Royal Welsh Show, but for all the fine weather and upbeat mood dark clouds were never far away.
As the show opened farming leaders and politicians were rowing over Brexit, with Welsh ministers and farmers’ union leaders warning about the risks from losing access to the EU’s single market.
It came as Michael Gove – who was visiting the Show for the first time as Environment Secretary – heralded the opportunities for Welsh farmers from new export markets that would open out when the UK secured new free trade deals with non-EU states.
Among farmers attending the show there were mixed feelings with some optimistic about the new opportunities while others feared for the future.
“The bottom third of the farming community will be in serious trouble,” warned one.
Ian Rickman farms 200 acres near Llandeilo, where he runs 450 ewes...
“It’s the uncertainty of the future for Welsh farming. That’s why it’s important we have as long a transition period as possible for whatever scheme comes in so that farmers can acclimatise to the new system.
“Speaking from the sheep sector, the single market is vitally important, there’s a very large export market for lambs to France and Germany, and if we lose that or don’t have tariff free access to that, we’ll have to find a new export home for those lambs. There are opportunities out there but we haven’t seem them yet. Still our biggest export market is Europe, and if we do lose that market then we will need something to replace it with.
“You ask any farmer in Wales they’ll be worried about the future because there’s no getting around it, the Basic Payment Scheme provides a large amount of the profit of any farm, without that most farms would be unable to function.
“Best case scenario is that there’ll be an overarching framework from the UK Government, because you don’t want the different devolved nations competing against each other. And within the devolved administrations then some flexibility to adjust the budget to suit the local conditions as they see fit.”
Dwylan Davies farms 400 acres near Llandovery, where he keeps 700 ewes and 20 cows...
“The morning after the vote last year it was a case of whatever I thought beforehand was wiped out the window. Hopefully we’re going to get a reasonable deal out of Brexit if the people who are making our deal are going to look after the Welsh farmers, because the overall budget is coming into the UK, Wales is a small part of the budget. We’d like as farmers to have it ringfenced so that we can have something similar to what we have now.
“But I don’t know where it will go from there, just wait and see I think.
“The lambs I produce are mostly on the small side. A lot of the bigger lambs are exported, and with the small lambs we’re limited to the markets we’ve got. Most of them are going to export, a lot of the old export markets have dried up, like Cyprus, Greece.
“I’m a very worried man at the minute. Unless they find something quickly, we’re going to struggle to sell.
“What I’d like to have guaranteed is that the quality of the imports that they bring in will be of the same standard as what we export out, whether it be lamb, beef, because we’re under pretty strict rules in this country, we can’t guarantee what comes in from Europe, because what will happen is that we’ll be looking for cheap food to import, and will they look at the health history of that food?
“Worst case scenario will be that farmers will be making under the minimum wage and banks will start repossessing the money that farmers have borrowed over the last 30 years. Under the European umbrella we were guaranteed that we could pay those debts, now I don’t know. The bottom third of the farming community will be in serious trouble.”
Diana Samuel farms on 320 acres split between two farms near Builth Wells, with 800 ewes between the two. She’s cheerfully optimistic about the future...
“We’re still very nervous because we haven’t heard enough of the details, but we’ve got to think positively and hope that eventually farming will improve.
“Obviously we’ve got to have a one or two year transition period. We’re hoping that we can get markets elsewhere out of the EU, which would help. Farming does need the support of the Government to help us through. There are times when it is difficult, the feeding costs are quite heavy.
“We still need to sell to Europe, because a lot of our lambs go there and we still need that trade. We haven’t got enough home trade to accommodate them all. So it’s still important that have some trade with the EU for some of the lambs.
“How many other countries have imports to come in, probably not that many because we’re a big producer of meat. I can’t see how the French can do without us really because we import more wine than they import our meat.
“Quality will be a worry but hopefully other countries will have to come to the same standards as ours, which are first class, they should bring them round to that in all countries I would hope.
“When one door closes another always opens.”
Aled Edwards farms on 250 acres near Llandovery, running 600 ewes and 70 pedigree Limousin cattle. He voted Remain and fears that cheap imports will be “the altar on which British agriculture is sacrificed”...
“So much of what needs to happen is political and out of our control. It depends on the bargaining position the country takes in the Brexit talks, depends how important the industry is in the context of those talks.
“Also, the importance of the European market as the main market for red meat in particular.
“The possible markets outside Europe are only possible, there’s a lot of politics involved in getting those trade agreements in place and historically they’ve been very difficult to break.
“We need the confidence that we’ve got the European market, particularly for lamb because we’re net exporters to Europe of a large per-
centage of our lamb production. It would be a catastrophe for the sheep industry if we lost access to that market, any tariffs to that market would be a disaster for us and I think you’d see wholesale evacuation of the mountains and hills.
“We’re only a bargaining chip in all this and agricultural produce has been notoriously difficult to get into these markets, particularly North America and Asia.
“There are always concerns about competing imports from those countries that are produced to lesser standards.
“Our concern also is that there will be political interference with the way that we produce our product in this country.
“Historically the agricultural industry has only been a small cog in the economy, a lesser cog than it actually is.
“I’m really very concerned about how we will be dealt with in these negotiations. I hope that the politicians will see the that importance of keeping populations in the rural areas it that we produce our own food, have control the safety of it, but I don’t know if it’s an important enough concern for them to put at the head of their Brexit negotiations.
“My main concern is that cheap food will be the altar on which British agriculture is sacrificed on, and it will be a short termism that will create that.
“Cheap food is what it is, cheap on several levels, you lose control on quality, and if that is the attitude of the Government and population in general to their quality of life, then I’m not very hopeful.”
Byron Jones, who is 75 and has been a farmer all his life, is most worried about what will happen to his son. The family farms 700 acres in the Swansea Valley, running 600 sheep and 50 Welsh Black cattle...
“Farmers are struggling now, depending on [money] coming in.
“Access to the Single Market is very important, it keeps the market up. I’d hate to think what will happen if we lose access to that market, unless we can find alternatives.
“I’m worried for my son who’s coming up behind. You can’t spend now and hope things will come in.
“The next two or three years are going to be very uncertain, the price of farms might alter, everything.”
David Mason is visiting the Show from North Yorkshire, where he farms on 500 acres, keeping both cattle and sheep. He’s enthusiastic for Brexit and doesn’t want to stay in the single market...
“I think the job’s not progressing fast enough, I think we ought to ram it on and get it sorted. Hopefully new trade deals will materialise.
“A lot of export markets are there to be taken advantage of. We’ll have to be very careful that we don’t open our markets to floods of imports. I don’t think we should bring in a lot of food from abroad, because you don’t know the standards of what they’re bringing in.
“Some farmers will struggle to survive, but they’ll have to get their act together.”