The steep decline in Welsh dairy farmers will continue so long as supermarkets continue to take a bigger share of the profits from milk sales, the Farmers' Union of Wales warned today.

New figures released by DairyCo revealed dairy farmers in Wales and England received an average 23.8p per litre for their milk during 2009/2010 compared to 25.8p the previous year. But the retailers' share of the price went up from 18.8p to 22.4p.

"These figures underline our fears for the traditional Welsh dairy farm which has declined sharply in numbers from 2,727 in 2006 to 2,094 last year," said the union's milk and dairy produce committee chairman Eifion Huws.

"And compounding the problem is the fact that the average farmgate price paid to Welsh farmers is actually much lower than the Wales-England average, because the majority of our milk goes into the cheese market."

"We now have to ask whether the prices paid to Welsh dairy farmers are sufficient to give them a sustainable return to enable them to invest in their business and continue to supply milk in an efficient and profitable manner.

"The Welsh dairy farm has been the backbone of community life in much of rural Wales for years and years but these figures don't provide any comfort for the future.

"I fear that the decline in dairy farm numbers will continue until there is a change of heart by the retailers and they start paying producers the kind of prices they badly need to allow them to fully meet their costs and invest for the future."

The Welsh Assembly Governments’ controversial Glastir scheme application packs and pre-populated application forms will be sent out today Monday October 4 to those farmers who expressed an interest in the scheme on their 2010 Single Application Form (SAF).

The scheme will be introduced in January 2012 and will replace the existing four schemes - Tir Gofal, Tir Cynnal, Tir Mynydd and the Organic Farming Scheme.

The Farmers’ Union of Wales Land use and Parliamentary Committee Chairman, Richard Vaughan, said today that “whilst the Union continues to have serious misgivings about aspects of Glastir, including the lack of information available on the targeted element of the scheme, it encourages farmers to look carefully at their options to avoid being disadvantaged at a later stage especially when details of the Targeted Element become clearer.”

The packs sent to farmers will include detailed maps of the land applicants intend to enter into Glastir and will display certain land characteristics which should help applicants choose their options.

“Farmers should take advantage of the Glastir surgeries to fully assess the implications of the scheme on their businesses and to consider specialist help if they are unsure of their ability to qualify, said Mr Vaughan”.

The Farmers' Union of Wales has appointed a multi-media journalism graduate of Bournemouth University as its press officer.

Anne Birkett, former student of Aberaeron Comprehensive School and Aberystwyth's Coleg Ceredigion, lives at Bwlchllan, near Lampeter. In her last job she was responsible for organising events with a film production company in Poole, Dorset.

"Having made the decision to move back to Wales to be closer to my family, who all live and work in Ceredigion, I am very excited to take on the new challenge of press officer for the FUW," she said today.

FUW director of public relations Peter Roberts said he was looking forward to working with Anne who has experience of print, broadcast and online media.

"Having worked in the newsroom of the Daily Echo in Bournemouth and for Heart FM radio, I am pleased that she has a strong knowledge of the media," he added.

The Farmers' Union of Wales in Meirionnydd today announced that a final sum of £5,200 was raised at a promise auction arranged at the farm of its deputy president Emyr Jones.

The event, held at Rhiwaedog, Rhosygwaliau, near Bala, also included a hog roast and entertainment. It followed a successful open day arranged by the Federation of Welsh Grassland Societies, the British Grassland Society (BGS), Aberystwyth University's Institute of Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences (IBERS), Grassland Development Centre and the FUW.

The open day was arranged to give farmers the opportunity to visit Mr Jones and family's beef and sheep farm which won the 2008 BGS national grassland management competition.

Mr Jones today praised to all those who assisted in raising such a large sum of money for such a worthwhile cause. The Wales Air Ambulance is the FUW president's chosen charity for 2010.

"The event's success was the result of kind assistance and close co-operation of many individuals, which was very much appreciated," added Mr Jones.

Meirionnydd Dwyfor MP Elfyn Llwyd will be the guest speaker at a meeting of the Farmers' Union of Wales county executive committee meeting next Monday evening October 4 at 7.30pm.

Mr Llwyd has close connections with the county branch and has a keen interest in agriculture and rural issues. The meeting will be held at Neuadd y Cyfnod, Bala.

It will be an opportunity for discussion on matters such as the forthcoming Common Agricultural Policy reform, the impact of UK Government polices on the rural economy of Wales and the likely outcome of the new Coalition's spending review.

Defra and the Welsh Assembly Government's new bovine TB eradication proposals and concerns regarding the Glastir scheme will also be discussed.

The Farmers' Union of Wales today welcomed European Commission indications that it will not punish sheep farmers for electronic identification (EID) errors beyond their control.

The EC's reported decision follows strenuous lobbying from Scottish MEP Alyn Smith and the FUW who raised the issue several times with the Welsh Assembly Government and even launched a petition to the Prime Minister which gained the support of 1,000 UK farmers.

"We have regularly pointed out the very real worries of Welsh farmers that they would be forced to pay heavy cross-compliance penalties as they grappled with the new EID regulations which came into force last January," said the FUW's hill farming committee chairman, Llangurig sheep farmer Derek Morgan.

Mr Smith had called on the Commission to give farmers a three-year amnesty while new EID technology was initiated. They declined to agree to an amnesty but a spokesman confirmed this week it would adopt "a proportionate" approach for farmers.

"In this context, failures, breakdowns, shortcomings, which are not within the range of influence of the keeper but casually determined by the technology used and within the normal error rate of that technology should not be sanctioned," the spokesman added.

The Commission also indicated it would not "automatically" penalise farmers where "one ear tag is missing".

Welcoming the news, Mr Morgan recalled telling the Assembly's rural development sub-committee in March last year that the union believed there were sufficient grounds for the EU Ombudsman to investigate the fact that farmers were being forced to use a technology that had been shown to have major flaws.

"I have first hand experience of EID, having used it on a small proportion of my Welsh Mountain sheep for the past seven years, and found that the technology is not sufficiently developed to be practical for the average Welsh flock. This has also been the experience of the vast majority of farmers and slaughterhouses that took part in recent trials.

"Even when dealing with a small number of sheep that are electronically identified, we are forced to manually record information on paper due to reliability issues with the technology. It's all very well using it to record and monitor a small specialist flock, but scaling its use up for every sheep in the country is madness."

In a written submission to the sub-committee's EID inquiry, the FUW emphasised the particular problems the regulation would bring for Welsh farmers, highlighting the fact that 80% of Wales comprises Less Favoured land, and that Welsh farms are therefore dependent upon moving animals from the mountains into the lowlands for wintering.

The FUW's petition, in the name of vice president Glyn Roberts, stressed that compulsory EID meant the increasing financial and practical burdens placed upon UK farmers would put them at a competitive disadvantage compared with importers into the EU.

It underlined farmers' concerns that the EID technology had major flaws including reliability, which brought into question the credibility of the decision to impose it from last January.

Mr Smith said the EC's latest move was encouraging news for farmers operating an imperfect technology. The sub-standard technology puts UK farmers at risk of having their Single Farm Payment docked for reasons beyond their control.

He said he would soon meet with the Commission to reinforce this point and to secure further clarity on their stance.