Reflections on 2025 - Ian Rickman
As we step into 2026, it’s worth taking a moment to look back at 2025 - a year that brought significant developments for Welsh agriculture, alongside the familiar pressures that continue to shape daily life on our family farms.
After years of conversations, confrontation and collaboration, the Sustainable Farming Scheme (SFS) was finally announced in 2025. While the scheme is not without its flaws, it is a considerable improvement on where the process began. As a Union, we welcomed the opportunity during autumn to engage with farmers through our Wales-wide SFS Roadshow, ensuring members had clear, practical information as they weighed up their options. With farmers now at a crossroads between entering the new SFS or opting for the tapered BPS, our work is far from over. The FUW’s dedicated team of staff will remain alongside our members as we understand, adapt to, and navigate this new scheme together.
2025 was about far more than SFS alone. The year saw the continuation of our efforts to lobby the UK government on their ill-thought-out changes to inheritance tax - a move that risks undermining the long-term future of our family farms and rural communities. The Bluetongue scare served as a sharp reminder of how quickly animal health threats and regulatory challenges can emerge, while ongoing pressures - rising cost of living, bovine TB, and increasingly volatile weather - continued to test the resilience of our businesses.
Despite the difficulties, 2025 also offered a chance for celebration. Undeb Amaethwyr Cymru marked 70 years of standing strong for Welsh family farms, a milestone that allowed us to reflect on the strength of our membership and the importance of the Union’s role in exclusively representing the voice of Welsh farmers. From the Royal Welsh to local shows, and the Senedd, it was a pleasure to catch-up with so many members and friends as we looked back on seven decades of dedication to Welsh agriculture. Diolch to everyone who played their part in those celebrations.
2026 will bring a generational shift in Welsh politics, with an expanded Senedd, new constituencies, and a reshaped political landscape. Whatever party - or parties - form the next government in May, a Senedd in which around two-thirds of Members will be new provides both an opportunity and a responsibility for us to engage proactively, build relationships, and ensure the voice of Welsh agriculture is heard clearly from the outset. No doubt, January’s Farmhouse Breakfast Week - always one of our calendar highlights - will provide a key opportunity to begin those conversations, both at the Senedd and around kitchen tables and communities across Wales.
Here at Gurnos as we look forward to 2026 there's plenty to think about. The last of 2025s Wagyu calves have moved onto their new home. While they grew well, rearing costs were higher, so we need to check our figures to make sure we are hitting our margin. Calf rearing seems to fit into our farming system well, and we've been rearing Wagyus for 3 years now, they don't usually come onto the farm until mid - April, after lambing so we've got time before we have to make the call.
Talking of lambing, so far this winter the sheep are looking well. We don't scan until the end of January, so fingers crossed and more news on how that goes next time. Winter feed stocks don't look too bad, our swedes are a bit patchy but much better than last year. We re-drilled the patches in the fields where they hadn't germinated with stubble turnips and with the help of some chicken manure and favourable weather in the early autumn they have grown well. All we need now is some dry weather once we start to strip graze them!
2025 seems to have flown by, and as we start 2026 there's one thing we know for certain about the coming year, there will be plenty of challenges out there for Welsh farmers, it's how we rise to those challenges that's important.
Nadolig Llawen a Blwyddyn Newydd dda!
This column will feature in the January 2026 edition of Y Tir, the Farmers' Union of Wales' members magazine.
