Welsh dairy farmers have expressed concerns about the adverse effect of flat milk supply profiles on their farm-gate prices.

Farmers' Union of Wales vice president Eifion Huws has written to Dairy UK chairman Robert Wiseman highlighting the impact flat profiles throughout the year are having on many dairy farm margins.

"While conversion to a flatter profile naturally incurs significant costs, maintaining such a profile is also much more costly than producing milk in accordance with the seasons, and this is particularly the case in many areas of Wales," wrote Mr Huws, who runs a dairy farm on Anglesey and is the FUW's milk committee chairman.

"Notwithstanding our concerns regarding the farm-gate price of milk in general, which you are well aware of, we do not believe that the majority who incur the extra costs associated with flat profiles receive farm-gate prices which are sufficient to make up for these costs.

"It has often been stated by Dairy UK and individual processors that the advantages of seasonal production for farmers are more than offset by the associated costs of seasonal variations in processing, and that flatter profiles therefore increase the overall income of the industry.

"Given this, we believe that dairy farmers should be afforded a fair income for their milk which fully takes account of the cost of production, including any increased input costs which benefit the dairy industry as a whole.

"I would therefore be grateful if you would raise this issue with members of Dairy UK, with a view to redressing the above concerns at the earliest possible opportunity."

Dairy UK represents the interests of dairy farmers, producer co-operatives, manufacturers of dairy products, and processors and distributors of liquid milk throughout the United Kingdom. Between them Dairy UK's members collect and process about 85% of UK milk production.

[caption id="attachment_4261" align="aligncenter" width="300"] NICHOLAS JOHN SOMERFIELD[/caption]

A former chairman and president of the Farmers’ Union of Wales Carmarthenshire county branch has been made a life member of the organisation.

Seventy-four-year-old Nicholas John Somerfield, who farms Welsh Mountain hill sheep and Gelbvieh and Welsh Black suckler cows on his 220-acre hill farm at Crug-las, Bethlehem, near Llangadog, has been a member of the FUW for 48 years.

He will fill the vacancy left by John Price, of Ddafadfa Isaf, Gwynfe, near Llangadog, who died last July.

Together with his wife Kyra, Mr Somerfield also runs a small herd of British Toggenburg dairy goats, one of the longest established in Wales, which has exported stock worldwide during the last 25 years.

Many were sent to set up third world aid projects in Africa and Mrs Somerfield has twice visited Ethiopia to evaluate the progress of herd development there.

Brought up at Send, near Woking, Surrey, Mr Somerfield joined the FUW in 1963 when he and his wife moved to their Brecon Beacons farm.

He was chairman and member of the union's land use committee for 22 years when he actively campaigned for the needs of small Welsh family farms.

"Based on the principle that any organisation requires input as well as out-take, I have endeavoured to contribute towards the union's efforts on behalf of the membership," he said.

He is currently a National Park Forum and Wales Biodiversity Action Group Member and used to be a member of the Environment Agency's environment protection advisory committee and the Countryside Council for Wales.

In 2005 he was awarded a silver salver by the FUW in recognition of his services to the union and to the agricultural industry in Wales.

Announcing Mr Somerfield’s selection at a meeting of the union’s grand council, former FUW deputy president Glyn Powell said: “Several names were put forward and we had a difficult task choosing just one.

"After discussions on the amount of service and the commitment they had all given to the union we decided unanimously to recommend the election of Nicholas John Somerfield.”

Revelations that the Food Standard Agency plans to increase its meat inspection charges to reduce their pension deficit of £103 million have outraged the Farmers’ Union of Wales and been labelled as a “disgrace” by president Gareth Vaughan at today’s meeting of the union’s grand council.

The union learned at a recent stakeholders meeting in York that nearly 15 per cent (£4.7 million) of the FSA’s proposed meat inspection charges for 2011/2012 are required to reduce its pension.

“The overall proposals are clearly a disgrace, but to pass on pension deficits to the industry and call them ‘costs’ beggars belief, and are something we will be writing to the European Commission about, as we believe this breaks EU rules,” said Mr Vaughan.

The majority of small and medium-sized slaughterhouses in Wales could close if their operators are forced to pay for bureaucratic and costly meat hygiene inspections, and face the additional £32 million burden.

“It is unlikely that cost increases will be passed on to customers rather than primary producers. Therefore, the proposals will have significant consequences in terms of farm incomes,” said Mr Vaughan.

“But perhaps the biggest concern is that the proposals come as manna from heaven to the supermarkets, and will increase their already massive control over the supply chain. It is estimated that over 50% of cattle and 70% of sheep are slaughtered in the independent, small and medium sized plants which are most threatened by these plans.

“To put it bluntly, the FSA is planning to hand over what is left of the independent meat industry to the supermarkets, and this is something that FUW will fight tooth and nail to prevent,” added Mr Vaughan.

Today's decision by Wales' Rural Affairs Minister Elin Jones to go ahead with a badger cull in north Pembrokeshire was welcomed by the Farmers' Union of Wales.

"It marks an important step towards reducing bovine TB (bTB) incidences in an area that has one of the highest rates of the disease in Europe," said the FUW's bTB spokesman, Carmarthenshire dairy farmer Brian Walters.

"The approach consistently promoted by the Minister has been shown to reduce the chances of cattle becoming infected with bTB.

"The Badger (Control Area) (Wales) Order 2011 she has laid before the Assembly today allows culling in one part of Wales in a way which will reduce badger numbers rather than eradicate them.

"Successive votes in the National Assembly have shown that the cull has cross party support from the majority of AMs.

"It seems likely that the order will be debated by the Assembly in the coming weeks, and we hope that AMs will have the same resolve as that shown by the Minister and the Welsh Assembly Government (WAG).

"The only thing which has changed since previous votes is that further scientific analysis has shown culling to be even more effective at stopping bTB over a prolonged period than was previously thought."

The Minister today announced new controls to deal with TB in non-bovines - including camelids, goats and deer - which were also welcomed by the FUW.

Mr Walters added that a paper published by the FUW last summer suggested a badger cull in north Pembrokeshire could reduce bTB herd incidences by 30% during a five-year cull and by 32% in a three-and-a-half-year period following culling.

"There is only one approach which has been shown scientifically to reduce bTB incidences in hotspot areas where bTB is endemic in badgers, and that is culling.

"Without decisive, science-based action we will not see the outcome we all want, which is cattle and badgers free of disease.

"With the cost to the taxpayer expected to reach more than £30m this year, bTB remains a major concern for the Welsh Assembly Government and one of the most serious economic issues facing the Welsh farming industry.

"And for those forced to watch their businesses being closed down and their animals removed for slaughter, the emotional cost is one that cannot be assigned a monetary value."

The FUW has welcomed a U-turn by the Welsh Assembly Government which will allow farmers' entitlements to be re-calculated where they are affected by reductions in common land forage areas.

The decision comes following extensive lobbying by the FUW over a prolonged period.

In the January edition of the WAG publication Gwlad, farmers were informed that they could face a reduction in the notional area they were allocated on commons due to re-mapping, and were told that they may require additional land to activate all their entitlements. The article also advised farmers to consider selling surplus entitlements.

FUW Common Land Committee Chairman, Lorraine Howells, said: "The FUW had written to WAG many times over the past six years warning that re-mapping without re-calculating entitlements would represent a serious departure from the historic single payment system adopted in Wales, and was likely to have severe consequences for large numbers of Welsh farmers."

"We were therefore appalled by the contents of the Gwlad article and immediately stepped up our lobbying, warning that the FUW would support legal action against such a policy."

Under the Welsh Single Payment Scheme, farmers with common land were granted entitlements based upon the forage areas of their common land areas in the years 2000-2002 - areas which were dictated to them by the authorities.

"Commoners had no control over these allocations during 2000-2002, so to suddenly reduce allocations, and thereby incomes, due to re-mapping would have been totally unjust," said Miss Howells.

"There was also a risk that commoners would have been informed of these changes at a time when it would have been too late to take action to minimise losses.

"This is therefore an important and welcome move by the Welsh Government.

"However, commoners should be aware that the re-mapping process is likely to have an impact for commoners in the future, for example in terms of Tir Mynydd payments, and when flat rate payments are introduced under the Common Agricultural Policy," added Miss Howells.

The Farmers' Union of Wales today reacted angrily to the Welsh Assembly Government's decision to reject a way of distributing an emergency EU fund for dairy farmers that would have favoured Wales' smaller producers.

Two distribution options were considered by the Assembly - Option 1: a payment of 0.2 pence per litre (ppl) of production during the 12-month period of greatest market disturbance (1 October 2008 to 30 September 2009) to each dairy farmer and Option 2: a two-tier payment comprising a payment of 0.5ppl on the first 100,000 litres of production plus an estimated payment of 0.15ppl on production over 100,000 litres during the specified period.

Both options had been considered by the FUW's 12 county branches and by the union's milk and dairy produce committee with the overwhelming majority favouring a two-tier mechanism on the grounds that, on average, smaller producers had higher production costs and were, by definition, unable to benefit from production bonuses and other production-related advantages.

"The two-tier system was also backed by members who stood to lose out under such a calculation," said committee chairman, Anglesey dairy farmer Eifion Huws.

"The decision, therefore, comes as a smack in the face for Wales's smaller family farms and I am extremely disappointed that the Minister has not opted for a more equitable system.

"It is claimed that if Wales had chosen an alternative option to the rest of the UK, the payments could not be guaranteed to be made by the deadline of 30 June 2010 by the Rural Payments Agency (RPA).

"Yet there are less than 2,300 dairy farms in Wales, and a two-tier calculation based on milk production is so straightforward a child could do it. If it is true that the RPA couldn't undertake a simple calculation for such a small number of holdings before July then that demonstrates that the agency is both incompetent and unfit for purpose.

"However, my main concern is that the Minister has simply bowed to pressure from the other devolved regions. While the moneys involved are not substantial, this sends out a damning message regarding the Welsh Assembly Government's support for smaller family farms."

Announcing she had selected Option 1, Rural Affairs Minister Elin Jones said it was chosen by the majority of farmers and industry representatives throughout the UK but she admitted in Wales their consultation gave a 50/50 split between both options.

Farmers will be receiving their payments from mid-April 2010 until the end of June.