Speaking after the meeting held on Monday 17 February, NFU Cymru President Aled Jones said: “The meeting was a good opportunity to provide the Deputy First Minister with a summary of the feedback from the NFU Cymru Sustainable Farming Scheme Roadshows. We presented the revised SFS scheme requirements to over a thousand farming businesses and whilst our members recognised the progress that had been made since Welsh Government’s Keeping farmers farming consultation, they highlighted a number of key areas that required further work.
“In particular, members, highlighted the need for the 10% habitat scheme rule to better reflect the wide diversity of temporary and permanent habitats we have on our farms. They were very clear that hedges and other traditional boundary features must be included within the scheme rule.
Bureaucracy
“Our members also raised concerns at the potential bureaucracy associated with the Universal Actions, Scheme Rule, Universal Code and Farm Carbon Assessment. We impressed on the Deputy First Minister the need to consider the cumulative burden of all the requirements of the SFS alongside all the other statutory regulations and requirements farmers must adhere to.”
“The meeting was also a chance to focus on funding for Welsh farming and an opportunity to thank the Deputy First Minister for his decision to maintain the Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) at current funding levels for 2025, a decision that has provided much needed short-term stability and certainty to Welsh farming, along with the thousands of ancillary businesses that rely on farming for so much of their income, at what is a very uncertain time for rural Wales.
“We discussed the importance of a comprehensive economic analysis and impact assessment of the revised proposals to understand what the scheme will mean for farmers and wider society and we impressed on the Deputy First Minister the importance of the Sustainable Farming Scheme being able to provide at least the same level of stability to farm businesses, our rural communities and the supply chain as the BPS does currently.”
Inheritance tax proposals
Other issues discussed in the meeting include the UK Government’s ill thought-out Inheritance Tax proposals, the independent review of the Water Quality Regulations, bovine TB and concerns over delays in planning applications in the poultry sector.
In conclusion Aled Jones said: “There is no doubt that this is a time of significant upheaval for Welsh farming, the cumulative burden of a range of policies and regulations is weighing heavily on farming families at this time. I have welcomed the partnership and collaborative approach that the Deputy First Minister has adopted since his appointment in March last year. It is imperative that this approach to policy design continues as we work through the detail of the SFS to ensure it will work for all sectors, for all farm types and areas of Wales and delivers a scheme that will meet our shared ambitions for food, climate, nature and communities.”