Put family farms first financially
MANY of you will have heard us talk about the development of new agricultural support policies over the years and we have always been clear that central to the development of any such policies should be a simple rule – evolution not revolution.
That is especially pertinent when we talk about Wales’ state-of-the-art RPW Online system, which efficiently and accurately collects annual data relating to 170 types of land use on hundreds of thousands of field parcels and areas throughout Wales.
It does that at a resolution of 0.01 hectares, while also collecting many other types of data relevant to Wales’ wellbeing, business practices, carbon sequestration and other environmental goods.
Such data covers around 90% of Wales’ land area (with the rest being mainly towns, forests, lakes etc) and the overwhelming majority of Welsh farm businesses.
Remarkably, minimal use of such data has been made by Welsh Government, despite it having been collected in one way or another for almost 30 years.
In today’s data-driven world, steps must be taken to better utilise such important data while rewarding its provision by farmers and landowners.
We should be analysing the data to allow individual businesses and Wales as a whole to monitor progress against key targets and to evolve policies and actions in response to patterns and changes.
This of course should be done carefully while adapting and developing the current system of data collection and the schemes which rely on it.
We have therefore called on the next Welsh Government to ensure that the RPW Online and related data collection systems are fully utilised and developed, and the provision of data rewarded – rather than implement current proposals to introduce costly, bureaucratic and burdensome schemes that undo the progress made through the development of RPW Online.
Furthermore, we must build on the progress made that has allowed farmers to provide and access data, while avoiding a move to complex bespoke contracts that introduce a postcode lottery and huge inequalities between farmers in different areas, requiring excessive use of costly and bureaucratic advisory services to implement.
When we talk of evolution not revolution, it should be noted that the FUW has supported the capping of payments to recipients of public funding since 2007, and that we were instrumental in securing the introduction of a cap on Welsh direct payments in 2015 to maximise the amount of money going to typical family farms and those who make the greatest contribution to rural communities and their local economy.
The EU has further recognised the importance of capping payments and supporting family farms, with the new CAP lowering capping levels after farm labour costs are taken into account and raising levels of support for small and medium-sized family farms.
It is therefore inexplicable that the current Welsh Government appears to be moving away from payment capping, making no mention of it in
its Agriculture White Paper.
Such an approach is despite the fact that its public goods payment proposals seem highly likely to redirect vast sums of money away from the family farms which make the greatest contribution to Wales’ economy and rural communities, whilst benefiting large landowners, big business and landowning charities.
The FUW regards such a change as highly regressive, and I’m confident the vast majority of the Welsh electorate would agree with us.
With this in mind, we urge the next Welsh Government to ensure that payments are capped at levels which favour family farms and prevent money flowing from businesses which support rural communities and economic activity to large remote landowners, big business and landowning charities.