Reflections on last year
AS MY time as NFU Cymru President comes to an end it has made me reflect but also look forward to the future.
We have a fantastic professional team at NFU Cymru and I am completely confident in the new officeholder team, led by Aled Jones, who has been a superb deputy and great friend over the last four years.
We have a global challenge in terms of climate change, and we were the first farming organisation to set the goal of net zero by 2040 and have an achievable plan for doing so. I’ve been heavily involved with this since the start and if a future farm policy here in Wales is correctly designed, it will provide a fantastic opportunity for nature, productivity and biodiversity to mesh together and provide the most climate friendly food in the world.
We have run many successful campaigns with NFU Cymru over the last few years, which I believe have changed the narrative with many of our consumers who now recognise that Welsh farming can be part of the solution and is not part of the problem. However there have been challenges and one which continues to deeply frustrate me is the lack of progress with bovine TB.
Water quality has and continues to dominate the headlines. Following the decision by Welsh Government to impose all-wales NVZ rules we took the decision to challenge government with a judicial review. NFU Cymru did not take this decision lightly but has done so on behalf of members, farmers and rural businesses across Wales.
It has been good to welcome our minister and many other MSS on farm to plant a tree in our ‘Growing Together’ strategy and I am pleased to see progress being made in the Senedd around this subject. We’re all very supportive of the right tree in the right place, but blanket afforestation across Wales will be strongly resisted. It was really good to have the minister announce the continuation of BPS for the next couple of years. This will provide some stability in a very volatile world.
It’s been a real pleasure to work with Minette Batters and the team at Stoneleigh and also the presidents of Scotland and Ulster.
I believe the NFU is uniquely placed to bring that UK perspective to the table.