This spring we have been attending the Welsh political party conferences, writes Aled Jones, NFU Cymru President.

It is a great opportunity to meet and discuss the key issues affecting our members not only with those politicians we meet with on a regular basis, but also politicians from more urban areas who we may not know so well.

Last month we attended the Plaid Cymru party conference at the Principality Stadium, in the heart of Cardiff.

On the first day of the conference NFU Cymru was delighted to jointly host a fringe event with the Farmers’ Union of Wales (FUW) where we set out our principles and ideas for a future ‘Made in Wales’ agriculture policy.

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The FUW President and I were able to present our Welsh Way Forward vision for Welsh agriculture, a vision that places Welsh food, farming, livelihoods, communities and our environment on a firm footing. The vision is based on a future Welsh policy meeting five key objectives.

  • Providing stability in a world of uncertainty, based on analysis of the impacts of Brexit, new trade arrangements, Covid-19 and geopolitical tensions.
  •  Ensuring continued support for the family farms that are the backbone of our rural and wider communities, delivering for our economy, our landscape, language and culture and keeping food producing families on the land.
  • Supporting rural communities and Welsh jobs by underpinning safe, top quality food production so that our farmers continue to be at the centre of food supply chains which sustain a multi-billion pound food and drink industry and hundreds of thousands of jobs.
  • Focusing on sustainable agriculture by continuing to invest in measures that drive productivity, improve efficiencies and support farmers to increase market potential whilst meeting environmental and climate change obligations.
  •  Rewarding environmental outcomes both in terms of what farmers have already delivered, and what they will deliver in future, in a way which complements the stability measure that we see as crucial to supporting food producing family farms.