Farmers ‘pray for dry autumn’ in wake of extreme conditions
AFTER a calamitous harvest earlier in the year caused by the severe drought, the window of good weather in recent weeks came as a lifeline for hundreds of farmers and their animals, allowing desperately needed additional crops of silage to be taken ahead of the autumn and winter.
For some, it has left stocks close to where they would normally be at the beginning of the autumn, but many others who are less fortunate have stocks which are still well below what they normally would be.
By this time last year, rainfall frequency well above the 30-year average had already left the ground sodden in many areas, and even as early as September 2017, 83% of Wales had soil moisture levels which were higher than the long term average.
With no let-up in the rain, by December 2017 the whole of Wales had soil moisture levels higher than the Long-Term Average – a situation which continued into the spring, meaning cattle which had already been housed weeks earlier than normal could not be turned out at the usual time in the spring, leading to inevitable fodder shortages.
With fodder in such short supply at the beginning of the housing period this year, farmers are now desperately praying for a dry autumn, which will allow them to keep cattle out for longer, thereby minimising the chances of seeing far worse problems than last year developing over coming months.
Welsh farmers are not alone in facing such adversity.
In mid July, the Irish Government estimated that there was an eight million tonne fodder shortage in the Republic, triggering the launch of a €2.75m tillage scheme paying €155 per hectare to grow additional fodder reserves.
Weeks later, Irish Agriculture Minister Michael Creed launched a €4.25m fodder import fund, soon after which fodder started being imported under the scheme.
A survey of 900 farms conducted by the Irish Government’s Interagency Fodder Committee at the beginning of September has led them to conclude that the Republic’s fodder deficit has now been reduced to three million tonnes – but in the areas hit worst by the drought, more than half the farms still have 23% less fodder than they would normally have.
While the Welsh Government has not conducted a survey to gauge the scale of Wales’ forage deficit, it has recognised the existence of a problem by committing £500,000 to farming charities, and has agreed to pay loans to the 5%-10% whose Basic Payments may not be paid in December.
With farmers’ attention divided between the need to ensure animals can be fed over the winter; a potential collapse in exports when we leave the EU in little more than five months’ time; and a Welsh Government consultation proposing the abolition of the direct payments on which 80% of farm business rely, stresses are running high across the industry.
Despite the Irish Government’s interventions to address rural needs, it still received harsh criticism for not doing more, but from a Welsh farming perspective, the grass is definitely greener on the other side of the Irish Sea.
Differences between Irish and Welsh approaches are nothing new, and perhaps not surprising given the far closer links between urban and rural areas on the Emerald Isle, but there is a great deal we can learn from our Celtic cousins – if only in terms of building bridges between rural and urban Wales.
For many years, the FUW has argued that policy-makers, who are primarily from non-rural backgrounds, should spend time on farms, experiencing how policies which look good on paper in a Cardiff office can be impractical when you’re standing on a mountain waiting for a vet in an unexpected April snowstorm.
Farmers would also benefit from spending time in offices considering the difficulties of trying to develop policies which will work on all farms in Wales – not just their own – which are deliverable within already slashed budgets.
Such exchanges would increase empathy and understanding on both sides, and most importantly of all help bridge the cultural divides which seem all too stark at times.