‘Where are we going to sell our farm produce and under what conditions?’

VALE of Glamorgan farmer Richard Walker voiced the concerns of many working in the industry during the meeting with Labour’s Shadow Brexit Secretary Sir Keir Starmer.

Mr Walker runs the 120-acre Flaxland Farm with his partner Rachel Edwards.

It entails looking after 120 breeding ewes, three rams, 40 lambs from last year, 150 lambs from this year and around 100 cattle, consisting of 37 breeding and 60 young stock.

Mr Walker, who is Glamorgan county chairman for the Farmers’ Union of Wales, said: “The big question for farmers up and down Wales is where are we going to sell our produce to and under what conditions. “Most of the lambs born this year will be sold into a post-Brexit market but nobody knows what that market looks like and where it is.”

He added that farmers were getting incredibly anxious about the future with many questioning if it is worth their while to continue producing food at all.

“The fact that the UK Government is even considering signing trade deals which would allow cheap food imports to flood our supermarket shelves is quite frankly outrageous and I certainly hope that this will not happen,” he said.

“Welsh farmers have to comply with some of the highest animal health and welfare standards in the world, which comes at a cost. So how can we be expected to produce cheap food, to the same standard, with no market to sell to?”

Talking about the urgent need for clarity on funding the FUW highlighted the fact that Welsh rural communities currently receive around £350m a year through the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy, with some £260m going to support farmers.

FUW managing director Alan Davies said: “While we acknowledge that the UK Government has said that it will match the current EU budget that supports farming and our rural economies, there is no clarity over how much money will actually be received in Wales – despite assurances from Michael Gove that this allocation will be not be calculated using the Barnett formula, which would see farmers in Wales lose 40% of their funding.

“We fear that if no steps are taken to resolve this issue very quickly then the family farms here in Wales will be seriously disadvantaged.

“Since the referendum we have recommended that funding for agriculture in Wales should be ringfenced, because we don’t want to see a situation where health and education is competing for money that would otherwise go to farming.

“We hope and expect the UK and Welsh governments to develop a management structure to ensure this does not happen.

“But we also need clarity on how much money will be available to Welsh Government for agriculture.”

Because of the level of farming in Wales in comparison with England and the workings of the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy, Wales currently receive 9.4% of the UK’s farm payments.

But if the Barnett formula – which determines how much UK Government money is allocated to the devolved nations – was applied, Wales would receive just 5.6% of total UK funding.

Mr Davies said: “The devil is in the detail. If money goes through a UK Government department, it could be subject to Barnett consequentials.

“We don’t know what is going to happen to exchange rates when we leave the EU. We don’t know what other countries will be able to trade into the UK. We fear that a deal will be done with a fairly benign nation that may bring in red meat and compete against us, because the UK Government may want to be seen to be doing the first deal. That worries us. All these things together just create a huge amount of uncertainty, and make it very difficult for people to plan for the future.”