Farmers faced with selling cows over new agri decree
AFARMING family are having to contemplate their worstcase scenario – selling off all their suckler cows – if new agri-pollution measures remain in place in Wales.
Glamorgan beef and sheep farmer Richard Walker and partner Rachel Edwards estimate they will need to find £50,000 to comply with the Water Resources (Wales) Regulations, which were introduced on April 1.
They keep 35 breeding cows and 130 breeding ewes at Flaxland Farm, a 120-acre holding just outside Barry.
Having considered their options, and worked with the Farming Connect advisory service, the couple believe they have run out of options.
“We have enough ground to cope with how much slurry we produce,” said Rachel.
“So we wouldn’t have to export it. But we would have to cover one of the existing yards, which is an awkward shape. We’d also need to cover where we scrape slurry to, and put in a new slurry store too. Which costs money we don’t have at the moment.”
As Richard and Rachel recently erected a shed on the farm, they have a fair idea of the costs involved.
Back-of-envelope calculations suggest at least £50,000 will be needed. “Thirty-five cows don’t bring in that sort of money,” said Rachel.
“Where do you get that money from? And you still need to pay it back at the end if it’s borrowed.
“We’re looking at the kids probably still paying off what we’d spend.
“Paying all that money back would be far more stressful than getting rid of the cows.”
Last November Rural Affairs Minister
Lesley Griffiths revealed the whole of Wales would be subject to the new regulations.
Natural Resources Wales had recommended they should apply to just 8% of the country’s land area. Precursor NVZ regulations had affected just 2.4% of Wales.
However, Mrs Griffiths said farmers had been given ample opportunity to get their house in order – yet Wales was still seeing more than 100 agri-pollution incidents each year.
A transitional period began on April 1, giving farmers time to prepare and invest in new infrastructure. The Welsh Government said good farmers would see “minimal impact”.
It is providing £11.5m in funding – just 3% of the £360m which the Welsh Government estimates will be the potential cost for the industry.
“There’s clearly nowhere near enough money to go around,” said Richard. “The total estimated bill is more than Wales’ annual farming budget. The margins are tight on lowland sucklers as it is. We’re looking at spending tens of thousands of pounds to comply. Is it really worth it?”
Being the farm’s third-generation custodian, Richard said the system hasn’t changed much over the years and pollution has never been an issue.
Until the 1960s Richard’s grandfather kept dairy cows. Since then the focus has been on suckler cows.
“I have had the cows all my life,” he said. “The way we keep them hasn’t changed – back then it was open yards and they were fed on a concrete pad. Whatever was left was scraped up and went out.
He takes the industry view that “one pollution incident is one too many”, and that anyone found guilty of polluting watercourses should be held to account.
But he said the new regulations are too punitive and, for a majority of farmers, are disproportionate.
THE horrendous impacts of the Welsh Government’s draconian Water Resources Regulations continue to dominate discussions between farmers, just as they continue to be central to FUW work given the hope common sense will prevail under a new Welsh Government after the elections.
And quite rightly so. With so many farmers now looking at the costs and their profit margins, and considering going out of cattle, the impacts in the coming years will be appalling – including for the environment, based on the assessments of a number of environmental bodies and scientific studies.
However, we must not lose sight of the bigger picture. No matter how big the NVZ issue is for our industry in the short to medium term, we are also facing unfair trading conditions agreed or being negotiated by the UK Government, and proposed changes to agricultural policies – as set out in the Welsh Government’s agriculture white paper – that will impact on every aspect of farming for the next 20 years or more.
With England basically following the same path as Wales (but a few steps ahead) when it comes to changing farm support, English farmers and organisations are finally waking up to the impacts and dangers of cuts to English direct payments, which start this year, with the Foundation for Common Land recently expressing its disappointment at the Prime Minister’s response to a letter in which they warned of an “impending car crash” which will leave 14,000 English farms at risk of being loss-making or earning less than half the national minimum wage by 2024.
Even the English Labour Party has said that the phasing-out of direct farm payments could lead to thousands of agricultural jobs being lost and family farms pushed to the brink of closure – and has launched a yearlong review of its rural policies.
Ironically, Wales’ Labour-run government hasn’t seemed to agree, and has been simply following the same path as the UK Government, with the similarity and links between Wales and England not lost on the Irish industry. Writing on the Irish Agriland website, agricultural chemist and former chair of the Northern Ireland Institute of Agricultural Science Richard Halleron said recently that: “UK Government’s decision to phase out the single payment support mechanism for livestock farmers in England and Wales opens up a door of opportunity for Irish beef producers.”
In other words, getting rid of direct support in Wales will lead to unfair competition that will disadvantage Welsh farmers and benefit Irish farmers – just as warned repeatedly by the FUW since the Brexit referendum.
Halleron also stated that: “Irish... record lamb and hogget prices... is a trend that is very likely to gain further momentum during the period ahead. At the heart of the issue is the Brexit deal struck by Britain, which now sees British sheep producers totally hampered by enhanced red tape and product inspections, when it comes to them servicing the French and EU markets. All these administrative obstacles are adding to their costs... France still needs lamb with the result that Irish lamb producers will benefit accordingly now and into the future.”
With Welsh lamb prices still extremely buoyant, we can only hope that this analysis is wrong, but our role as the FUW is to look well beyond last week’s market prices or promises of a bright future made by our politicians, and Halleron’s longer term predictions are exactly what we warned of and why we have fought against the hard Brexit option chosen by the UK Government and the Welsh Government’s reform proposals.
So let us hope that the UK Government and next Welsh Government start listening to the warnings, whether they come from English Labour, English and Welsh farming organisations, or our Irish competitors – who are rubbing their hands in glee at the number of own-goals our governments are scoring against our own food and farming industry.