Unions call for Welsh agriculture bill to protect farm jobs

Farm leaders have called for changes to the Agriculture (Wales) Bill to help safeguard farming jobs and tenancies.

The Welsh government bill was published in September and set out four Sustainable Land Management (SLM) objectives for an agricultural strategy to achieve.

These covered food production, biodiversity, landscape, and social and cultural issues. It was met with a broadly positive response at the time and welcomed as a landmark event, with Wales producing its own national strategy for the first time.

However, responses made to an inquiry by the Senedd Economy, Trade and Rural Affairs (Etra) committee have since highlighted concerns.

See also: Tenant farmers to get legal rights to access Welsh agri-scheme

Farmers’ Union of Wales (FUW) senior policy officer Hazel Wright called for the addition of a fifth SLM objective covering farm economics and viability.

Dr Wright said that if the bill was designed appropriately, it represented a chance to develop farming policies tailored to the needs of those living and working in Wales.

However, in its present format, the four SLM objectives stopped short of protecting the livelihoods of people in farming.

She explained that, while sustainable food production was at the core of the objectives, there were currently no direct rewards for it.

Nor were there direct rewards for the supply of safe, traceable, high-standard food, or for the protection of domestic food security, Dr Wright added.

Without such inclusions, policies could be formed under the bill’s framework, but with no obligations on ministers to safeguard the financial viability of farmers.

“We therefore believe the SLM objectives should be lengthened to create one which explicitly seeks to ensure the economic stability of farming families,” she said.

Tenancy matters

Meanwhile, the Tenant Farmers Association in Wales (TFA Cymru) offered a raft of areas where the bill could be tightened and improved.

In particular, it pointed to concerns over plans for county council holdings in Wales. The bill included no specific mention of local authority farms – a third of which had been sold off since the late 1980s.

TFA Cymru likened the current process of council holdings management as merely overseeing a conveyor belt where tenants came in one end and dropped off at the other.

Instead, the organisation called for a more detailed and supportive policy for council farms.

“Smallholdings authorities need to put resources into ensuring that their tenants can make the transition to the private sector,” TFA Cymru’s submission said.

“If this is not possible, they should look at extending existing tenancies and providing longer-term tenancies for the security of and investment by those granted initial opportunities.”

Minimum tenure

On encouraging landlords to offer longer-term farm business tenancies with a minimum tenure of 10 years, the organisation suggested the ability to terminate the tenancy early could be granted in the following circumstances:

• Non-payment of rent (as an alternative to forfeiture)
• Breaches by the tenant of contractual terms or conditions
• The death of the tenant
• The landlord’s need to remove land from the holding where planning consent has been granted for non-agricultural use.

TFA Cymru also drew attention to the bill’s nod towards succession plans on Agricultural Holdings Act tenancies, which it said needed further detail.

It said there was a need to review the scope of the Close Relative Test for succession, to deal with situations where the natural successor was a member of the family, but not a “close relative” as currently defined.

These might include:

• A nephew or niece
• A son-in-law or daughter-in-law
• A grandchild
• Someone who has been treated as a close family member, but where there is no marriage or civil partnership.