Farmer Focus: Appreciate the hard work of farmer leaders

Only routine work has been done at Pant Farm this week, as I’ve attended the Welsh Council of NFU Cymru, where we had hustings with the NFU presidential candidates. 

We also heard the Welsh Assembly government has supported just 12 farmers from across Wales with sustainable production grants, despite intense lobbying for a small-scale grant scheme that more farmers could access.

Many farmers are critical of the NFU and its leadership, but when you get a bit more involved you see the work that is done behind the scenes – particularly in fighting some of the legislation that non-governmental organisations and environmentalists would like to impose on the industry.

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You then appreciate the hard work of the farmer leaders who give up their time for the common good.

I then attended the inaugural Dairy Sheep & Goat Conference near Bristol, which was an excellent and well-attended event.

See also: Farmer Focus: Welsh BPS payment target looks fanciful

Among other things, we learned about goat nutrition and data recording from Israel, kid-rearing systems, and dry goat management.

I also made contact with a vet trained to AI goats using French males with proven estimated breeding values from a progeny testing scheme.

I later travelled up the M5 to Gloucester – getting a speeding ticket on the way – for our annual benchmarking meeting.

This is a good opportunity to compare costs with other producers and I would recommend it to all sectors of agriculture.

However, you do need to be prepared to share your figures, both good and bad, and be prepared to take criticism from others.

It works better with a small group as it takes time to go through everyone’s figures.

Returning to the farm, we are steam cleaning and disinfecting the shed, hurdles and other equipment ready for kid rearing to start soon.

We are also vaccinating all the goats with Lambivac boosters prior to kidding and running some blood tests to check on the dry goats’ nutrition status.

Hunting in Monmouthshire has been very difficult with the continued wet weather. Out of respect for farmers we have been on foot recently, with horses confined to the open hill ground of the Black Mountains west of Abergavenny.

Gary and Jess Yeomans run a herd of 700 milking goats across 100ha, which supplies a local cheese factory. They also own a small pedigree Welsh Black suckler herd to graze permanent pasture.