The Farmers’ Union of Wales is reminding and encouraging members to make use of funding offered by Farming Connect (FC) as part of their Lifelong Learning and Development Programme.

The aim of the programme is to deliver a more professional farming and forestry industry, which will be delivered through a combination of direct training and on line e-learning.

Categories for training are split into three areas - transformational, consisting of business and leadership and management courses; technical, consisting of key technical training courses and machinery and equipment use.

The union’s land use and parliamentary committee chairman Gavin Williams said: “I would encourage all eligible members to participate in the Lifelong Learning and Development Programme offered by Farming Connect.

“There is a strong call for the farming industry to be more professional and through these training courses we can help ourselves to become more efficient, perceptive and resilient.”

Those interested in applying for funding need to be registered with FC and complete the online personal development plan before they can submit a funding application for completing a short course.

Eligible candidates can submit an application for funding, which could cover up to 80 percent of the cost, between January 4 to January 29, April 1 to April 29 and June 1 to June 30 in 2016.

Those applying for funding for a machinery and equipment use course need to complete the online Health and Safety (H&S) course before submitting an application.

Applicants are further advised to speak to their local approved training provider about course dates and obtain course costs and will be notified if funding has been approved or not.

Eligible clients are advised that they must receive funding approval in writing before commencing training, must pay the training provider the minimum 20 percent contribution and complete training within 9 months once funding has been approved.

The Farmers’ Union of Wales is urging the Welsh Government to look beyond the current CAP and undertake work early on to identify priorities and options which best suit Wales’ agricultural industry.

The FUW stresses that early discussions are essential in order to feed into discussions at an EU level and help shape the next CAP.

In light of this the union believes that concerns over whether the UK will remain a part of the EU should not be used to justify procrastination, not least since such work may also inform policies should exit from the EU become inevitable.

Reiterating a key message from the FUW manifesto, FUW president Glyn Roberts said: “Over the past five years both the European Commission and the Welsh Government have, it is hoped, learned important lessons in terms of planning for the future.”

The European Commission (EC) failed to secure agreement for its proposed reforms in time to implement the scheme in 2014, while the complexity of the regulations finally passed meant the new Commissioner – Phil Hogan – had little choice but to make CAP simplification an immediate priority.

Despite the twelve month delay to the CAP implementation date, the Welsh Government’s failure to heed the FUW’s warnings by preparing for the new CAP early on led to two legal challenges and limited options in terms of the final payment models which could be practically implemented in Wales.

“As such, we are left with an imperfect Welsh Basic Payment Scheme which fails to meet the key aspirations agreed by government and industry, and costly levels of bureaucracy which contradict the original principles agreed by the European Commission and Parliament,” added Glyn Roberts.

The clear lesson for the EC is that, in light of co-decision making, it is essential that discussions on the priorities and options available under the next CAP must be started early – a concern already raised by the FUW with Commissioner Hogan.

A key message in the FUW’s 2016 Welsh Assembly election manifesto, which should be heeded, are the strong believes that the incoming Welsh Government should undertake detailed work to examine the possible outcomes of adopting a broad range of Welsh basic payment models post 2020, undertake mapping work in order to identify those areas which might be used as the basis for future payment models and investigate the benefits or otherwise of multi-tiered payment systems akin to the Redistributive and Tir Mynydd models in order to feed in to discussions at an EU level.

The Farmers’ Union of Wales has welcomed a Welsh Government decision to accept its calls for a ‘simplified’ stage 1 appeals process for alleged over-declarations on this year’s Single Application Form.

Following the release of Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) part payments from December 1, and the issuing of accompanying payment statements, many farmers had noticed large deductions had been made to their eligible areas, in some cases triggering penalties.

“In many cases these seem to make no sense, and the fact that maps showing how government staff have mapped areas are not available, makes appealing very difficult,” said FUW Gwent county executive officer Glyn Davies.

“We have therefore been in constant talks with Rural Payments Wales (RPW) to simplify the appeals process, and welcome the proposals – although we remain frustrated that we are in this situation,” he added.

Under the simplified appeals system those who wish to appeal against deductions can submit CRNs and the relevant field numbers via RPW Online, along with contact details, at which point Welsh Government officials will check their maps. If queries are not acknowledged by RPW within seven days farmers should contact the Welsh Government’s Customer Contact Centre.

“If Welsh Government only partially accepts or rejects the appeal, farmers will be given confirmation of the area deducted and a screen shot of Welsh Government mapping to show where deductions have been made. There will then be a second opportunity to query the figures before moving to a stage 2 appeal,” added Glyn Davies.

“Farmers are suffering financially this year due to poor farmgate prices, so it is extremely frustrating to be confronted with reductions or penalties without any clear information about why these may have been applied.

“The complexity of the new CAP rules and the requirement to provide sketch maps has been a nightmare for farmers and all those assisting them this year.

“FUW staff worked tirelessly in the run up to May 15, dealing with the new regulations, so I have every sympathy with Welsh Government staff who are now under the same pressures.

“However, it is extremely frustrating to see cases where farmers’ figures have been changed by miniscule amounts and these add up to large areas, despite mapping measurements being by definition extremely subjective.”

[caption id="attachment_6009" align="aligncenter" width="200"] FUW president Glyn Roberts[/caption]

For six of the past twelve months I have had the honour of serving as the FUW’s President – an experience which has taken me all over the country and much further afield and allowed me to make many new friends and acquaintances.

 While the majority of those I have met have been farmers, many others are involved directly or indirectly with the industry. Yet there has been one clear and uniform message from all in terms of their worries regarding the impact of the collapse in farm incomes on agriculture and the businesses which rely on the industry.

As I write, a main focus for the industry is the need for Basic Payments to be made as soon as possible, and while we have warned since June that such delays were imminent due to the additional burden of the new CAP rules, the FUW continues to put pressure on the Welsh Government to process payments as quickly as possible – payments which are as just as essential to the survival of thousands of businesses which rely on agriculture as they are to farming families.

While it is easy to focus on the problems currently facing us, it is important not to lose sight of the wider challenges facing us over the coming year and beyond, as well as the opportunities.

A major ongoing challenge is likely to be the Euro-Sterling exchange rate which is the main factor in terms of the fall in livestock values and has a direct impact on CAP payments, while for the dairy sector there seems to be little hope that matters will improve significantly next year without major changes in global demand and trading patters – not least with regard to China and Russia.

As farmers we must be realistic about such factors and the degree to which they are outside our control – but it is also imperative that where positive actions are possible, whether by our own governments or key players such as retailers, these are taken.

Sadly, 2015 has not filled the industry with confidence that this need is recognised; cynical buying and marketing policies by some retailers merely added to existing downward pressures on prices, while many feel that a Welsh Government obsession with passing legislation means good governance has been eclipsed by bad regulation.

The FUW’s 2016 Welsh Assembly Election Manifesto launched at the Royal Welsh Winter Fair details those actions which we believe should be a priority, while also highlighting the dangers to the wider economy of heaping ever more costly bureaucracy and restrictions on an industry which is already under immense financial pressures.

While much of the focus over the coming months will be on the Welsh elections, as the year moves on attention will increasingly centre on the EU membership referendum, and the FUW has made no bones about its support for EU membership and its belief that the Welsh Government must make up for lost time in terms of quantifying the possible economic impacts of Brexit and preparing contingency plans.

Such issues seem a world away to those which faced our founder members sixty years ago when they decided to form the FUW – yet our commitment to fighting at all levels for the family farms which underpin Wales’ agricultural industry has not faltered, and I am heartened by the enthusiasm and positive attitude of an upcoming generation of young members who will guide us over the next six decades.

We are indebted to all FUW staff and officials for their dedication and hard work over the past year, not least during the extremely difficult SAF period, and I wish them and all our colleagues across Wales and further afield a very Happy Christmas and prosperous New Year.