Farmer Focus: Farmer confidence in Welsh government is low
© Richard Stanton I have reflected on my visit to the Royal Welsh Winter Fair, and it seemed like many I talked to were feeling like a rabbit in the headlights.
Among the celebrations, a cloud of doubt was hanging over the industry.
The doubt stems from the Welsh government. In the lead-up to the show, we heard of a £37.5m cut to the overall rural affairs budget, which directly supports farmers to produce safe, traceable food at affordable prices.
See also: ‘Fury’ as Welsh government cuts rural affairs budget
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This cut will help fund increases to the NHS and transport budgets.
With this cut, the horrendous launch of the new Habitat Scheme (which will pay 45% less than Glastir Advanced), and the hurtful comments suggesting farmers should change their business if they have perpetual TB in their herds, the Welsh government is not supportive of our industry.
While it will say uncertainty comes from the current Westminster shambles, I really don’t care.
Farmers need certainty. Our businesses are not pop-up shops that can scale up and down at a moment’s notice.
In a perfect world, food production should be politics-free. Imagine if we had grown-ups in charge who derived food production policies based on science alone – I’m pretty sure our animal health policies around bovine TB would change considerably in Wales.
But also, imagine if policies were consistently thought out to encourage sustainable food production, rather than planting trees hoping to attract votes at the next election.
Most policies from most governments are short-sighted, looking towards the next election rather than the next generation.Â
What if our budget was ring-fenced and index-linked like the state pension? I might be dreaming, but I wonder how many other farmers have similar thoughts.
I think most farmers would accept radical climate-change policies if they had confidence the policy wasn’t a fad to attract votes and was backed by science.
Next year, we are likely to have a new Westminster government, but I don’t think uncertainty will end.
We will probably have two governments either side of the border of the same colour, and I’d like to think that they would work together for better outcomes, rather than play politics with people’s lives. However, I will wait in anticipation.