Welsh Sustainable Farming Scheme AND Protests

Still Farming · Feb 2, 2024

Farmers Guardian

Social media has been rife with images and videos of tractors blockading roads or spreading muck in the streets in both Germany and France, and it has sparked quite the debate among UK farmers. We...

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Still Farming · Feb 2, 2024

Farmers Guardian

Social media has been rife with images and videos of tractors blockading roads or spreading muck in the streets in both Germany and France, and it has sparked quite the debate among UK farmers. We...

www.facebook.com

dogandstick · Feb 2, 2024

neilo said:
Quite, but Drakey says it shall be so.

There are lots of places in Wales that are unsuitable for growing trees, a clue being that there aren’t any trees there already perhaps?

Stalin insisted that maize should be grown in Siberia in the 1930’s- that didn’t work out well either.......................for the crop............or those responsible for the crop failure.

little_p · Feb 2, 2024

Ffermer Bach said:
Daughter went to Cardiff University, and chose a Welsh speaking hall of residence for her first year, but she said the other day, that everyone spoke English in the halls.

It would have been Senghennydd court, G Block. Affectionately known as the 'gog bloc'.

Ali_Maxxum · Feb 4, 2024

I’ve been to a YFC response to SFS workshop in Builth on the show ground today. 2 lovely representatives, 1 from FUW and 1 from NFU.

Gave us the facts and figures (or complete lack of in monetary terms) and explained very well all the 17 UAs and scheme rules. As well as answering all of our questions from current and past members from up and down the country.

5 and a half hours we went on for. Stopped for about 10 minutes for a pee and tea.

I strongly urge anyone farming in Wales or anyone in industry relating to agriculture to desperately try to attend one of the last few available meetings and get a response sent in.

Cowabunga · Feb 5, 2024

None of this comes as a surprise to me and I have been warning about this for many years on this forum. It gives me no joy to see it come to this.
However, we all have a choice and mine is not to engage with any of their hair-brained schemes and to simply wind down the business. The timing is very lucky for me because I am now of pensionable age anyway and have nobody to hand the farm on to. Will probably still tick over with a low input, low cost, low output system for as long as sensible but will not, on principle, take on any scheme with their ridiculous terms.

This is far more serious for youngsters wanting to farm of course. They will have to come to terms with managing the farm according to what the Cynilliad or DEFRA demands of them. This is taking over the farm on the cheap, without actually taking it into public ownership, which would mean paying farm managers and workers proper wages and having paid secretaries and holidays etc. No more ‘free’ family labour then. Make no mistake, the communists are taking us over by stealth. They have an ideology and nothing will steer them from the path of running farms without paying a weekly wage or risking making cash losses. They are quite happy to see naive farmers run themselves into penury.

Resist or be extinguished and, in Wales especially, prepare to lose the language and the culture. The crunch is coming.

Robbo the Farmer · Feb 5, 2024

Cowabunga said:
None of this comes as a surprise to me and I have been warning about this for many years on this forum. It gives me no joy to see it come to this.
However, we all have a choice and mine is not to engage with any of their hair-brained schemes and to simply wind down the business. The timing is very lucky for me because I am now of pensionable age anyway and have nobody to hand the farm on to. Will probably still tick over with a low input, low cost, low output system for as long as sensible but will not, on principle, take on any scheme with their ridiculous terms.

This is far more serious for youngsters wanting to farm of course. They will have to come to terms with managing the farm according to what the Cynilliad or DEFRA demands of them. This is taking over the farm on the cheap, without actually taking it into public ownership, which would mean paying farm managers and workers proper wages and having paid secretaries and holidays etc. No more ‘free’ family labour then. Make no mistake, the communists are taking us over by stealth. They have an ideology and nothing will steer them from the path of running farms without paying a weekly wage or risking making cash losses. They are quite happy to see naive farmers run themselves into penury.

Resist or be extinguished and, in Wales especially, prepare to lose the language and the culture. The crunch is coming.

I agree, I’ve had that been told by farming connect farmers.
Like you say, we all have to take advice from our accountants, tax advice, inputs of downsizing (insurance, diesel, maintenance, leave NFU etc), pretty hard I’m 56 now, the old tractor has just cost £3000 in repairs, still got a fair bit of fencing to do 1km, the straw guys have put the straw up on todays delivery. It all adds up

Robbo the Farmer · Feb 5, 2024

Just looked on the BPS payments website, I'm shocked at how much the County Councils get from Rural Payments, Bridgend £541,725? Never thought about councils? Schools have had milk paid from rural developments?
Makes you think hard on the transparency of WG?

neilo · Feb 5, 2024

Robbo the Farmer said:
Just looked on the BPS payments website, I'm shocked at how much the County Councils get from Rural Payments, Bridgend £541,725? Never thought about councils? Schools have had milk paid from rural developments?
Makes you think hard on the transparency of WG?

With 100% capping over £300k, have Bridgend Council been fraudulent to be able to claim more?

Still Farming · Feb 5, 2024

Ali_Maxxum said:
I’ve been to a YFC response to SFS workshop in Builth on the show ground today. 2 lovely representatives, 1 from FUW and 1 from NFU.

Gave us the facts and figures (or complete lack of in monetary terms) and explained very well all the 17 UAs and scheme rules. As well as answering all of our questions from current and past members from up and down the country.

5 and a half hours we went on for. Stopped for about 10 minutes for a pee and tea.

I strongly urge anyone farming in Wales or anyone in industry relating to agriculture to desperately try to attend one of the last few available meetings and get a response sent in.

Sustainable Farming Scheme - Information Events

Search our Events Finder for business related training, workshops, networking, seminars and more from a variety of organisations

wales.business-events.org.uk

down n'dirty · Feb 5, 2024

Have filled in the Govt Consultation form today, the one on the website- not for the fainthearted! All the questions seem to be steered towards the acceptance of the scheme as it stands. The NFU one is probably easier, but I wanted to put in personal examples of how it would affect our farm. Will probably be totally disregarded as not the response they were looking for! I urge everyone to respond to this consultation by whatever route- we must show the strength of feeling over the decimation of the Welsh Agricultural Industry. By the way, totally agree with Bald Rick, now's the time to march on the Senedd and make our voices heard!

Bald Rick · Feb 5, 2024

down n'dirty said:
Have filled in the Govt Consultation form today, the one on the website- not for the fainthearted! All the questions seem to be steered towards the acceptance of the scheme as it stands. The NFU one is probably easier, but I wanted to put in personal examples of how it would affect our farm. Will probably be totally disregarded as not the response they were looking for! I urge everyone to respond to this consultation by whatever route- we must show the strength of feeling over the decimation of the Welsh Agricultural Industry. By the way, totally agree with Bald Rick, now's the time to march on the Senedd and make our voices heard!

The NFU Cymru response expands the box as you type so you can say as much or as little as you want. Goes directly to WG and you get an email acknowledgment - provided you have inputted an kosher email address of course

down n'dirty · Feb 5, 2024

No limit to what you can type on the Govt. one-box expands also

Robbo the Farmer · Feb 5, 2024

Having 10 acres of woodland and never been paid under the EU payment BPS, our farm is going to benefit, I’ve been soil testing, using the grants etc over the last 5 years. I’ve found deeds to 2 acres of Larch my wife’s grandfather planted and not been aware of this on another woodland area, been a red herring now a pot of money to be had. Always had farm visits where the tree canopy lost us money, but glad now we never cut those trees down!

Robbo the Farmer · Feb 5, 2024

Tonight’s meeting in Llanarth the payments guy said a lot of the actions don’t have to be in place straight away, the carbon thing needs to be done in the 1st year. If you don’t take up at the start, a years delay sticking with BPS will effect the capped payment by 20%, 2 years delay 40% to nothing in 2029. They say the SFS should not lose you out of pocket to the BPS, that’s the question our 2024 payment rate?

Loftyrules · Feb 5, 2024

Robbo the Farmer said:
Having 10 acres of woodland and never been paid under the EU payment BPS, our farm is going to benefit, I’ve been soil testing, using the grants etc over the last 5 years. I’ve found deeds to 2 acres of Larch my wife’s grandfather planted and not been aware of this on another woodland area, been a red herring now a pot of money to be had. Always had farm visits where the tree canopy lost us money, but glad now we never cut those trees down!

I wanted to ask how soil samples taken in the last 2 years or last year are accounted for. If all my farm was sampled in 2023 when do I have to start the sampling cycle in this scheme

neilo · Feb 5, 2024

Robbo the Farmer said:
Tonight’s meeting in Llanarth the payments guy said a lot of the actions don’t have to be in place straight away, the carbon thing needs to be done in the 1st year. If you don’t take up at the start, a years delay sticking with BPS will effect the capped payment by 20%, 2 years delay 40% to nothing in 2029. They say the SFS should not lose you out of pocket to the BPS, that’s the question our 2024 payment rate?

They told us that at Welshpool too. However, you are out of pocket changing to SFS as every UA incurs a cost to your business, whereas the BPS does not.
The SFS payment (so far unknown) would need to be higher than the current BPS in order to not be ‘out of pocket’, due to those extra costs incurred.

Bald Rick · Feb 5, 2024

Loftyrules said:
I wanted to ask how soil samples taken in the last 2 years or last year are accounted for. If all my farm was sampled in 2023 when do I have to start the sampling cycle in this scheme

You have to sample at least 20% of the farm in year one and all the farm by the fifth (final) year of the scheme. I suspect they won’t allow samples taken before entry to SFS to count

neilo · Feb 5, 2024

Loftyrules said:
I wanted to ask how soil samples taken in the last 2 years or last year are accounted for. If all my farm was sampled in 2023 when do I have to start the sampling cycle in this scheme

Every land parcel needs to be tested in the last 5 years iirc, so you could delay sampling until 2028 if you wanted to, if every parcel was sampled in 2023.

They are looking at sampling for soil OM on top of the standard tests though, and thinking of adding other requirements too, such as worm counts and/or fungal measurements of some kind and/or soil structure assessments.

Robbo the Farmer · Feb 5, 2024

Can I add my wife’s grandfather milked Ayrshires and British Friesians till the day he died 1988, the farm stopped milk in 2001, 1 year after my father in law died 59, dairy back in the day never got payments. After his death my wife’s uncle converted the dairy to beef, we only had half the cattle to what we have now and lost out on those grants to 2003, then with 100 acres we have not had much well below the average and see the SFS as good things come to those that wait.

Welsh Sustainable Farming Scheme AND Protests

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Up to 25%

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50-75%

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100% I’ve had enough of farming!

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