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Kick-starting Farmhouse Breakfast Week at the Assembly, from left, deputy minister for farming and food Rebecca Evans, Hybu Cig Cymru chairman Dai Davies and FUW president Emyr Jones.[/caption]
Farmers’ Union of Wales president Emyr Jones has highlighted the need for political leaders to come up with strategies which deal with the severe collapse in farmgate milk prices and the longer term viability of food production.
Speaking after the function, during which he told a gathering of more than 100 AMs and industry leaders that confidence within the dairy industry had collapsed, Mr Jones said:
“Action by supermarkets, dairy processors and governments is desperately needed in order to boost dairy farm incomes and confidence.
“However, we also need a long term strategy which takes account of the importance of food producers and food security, and the huge changes in agricultural policies which have occurred over the years.”
“We have gone from guaranteed prices to the watering down of the CAP and now quota abolition is imminent. Many want a further acceleration in the form of the complete dismantling of the CAP and complete exposure to global price volatility.
“But there is no real ‘Plan B’ which reflects the importance of protecting food producers and ensuring food security, and unless action is taken to recognise this I fear we are slowly opening Pandora’s box at a time when food trade wars and the threat of terrorism should place the issue very much at the centre of the EU’s agenda.”
Mr Jones told those present at the function that the newly introduced Common Agricultural Policy was the latest incarnation of policies drawn up more than fifty years ago by people with first-hand experience of the economic and human impact of more than a decade of food shortages and price volatility.
“The powers that be must recognise that policies which protect our food supplies are at least as important as policies aimed at preventing financial crises, and that the arguments in favour of common policies and controls which protect farm incomes and food production are as valid today as they was sixty years ago.
“EU membership is inherent to those policies, and the consequences of leaving the EU and the 700 million customers who live on mainland Europe would be dire,” he added.