Representatives of the Farmers’ Union of Wales (FUW) have had a constructive meeting with Minister for Rural Affairs and North Wales, and Trefnydd Lesley Griffiths to highlight and discuss actions the Welsh Government could take to mitigate the impacts of the Russian war on Ukraine.
The FUW wrote to the Minister on 4th March highlighting the impacts of the war and to ask for an emergency roundtable meeting with stakeholders to be arranged.
The war is having and will continue to have major impacts on UK food supply chains and input costs. The UK relies on Ukraine and Russia for around thirty percent of its maize as well as a number of other ingredients used for animal feed, and fertiliser is now hitting around a thousand pounds per tonne.
The real impacts will not be felt in the UK for months as Welsh and global food production falls due to shortages and unaffordable input prices.
While the actions the Welsh government can take to mitigate such impacts are limited, maximising crop and fodder production in Wales this year will be crucial for the 2022-23 winter and well into 2023 and beyond.
With this in mind and following successful meetings during the recent Welsh Labour Party Conference, the FUW proposed that the framework of the Welsh Agriculture Bill needs to be flexible enough to allow changes in response to global events such as this, and for food production to be considered as a public good given concerns over food security.
Furthermore, the Minister was asked to consider derogations for Glastir scheme rules to help mitigate impacts.
The FUW also once again highlighted the need to review the Water Resources ‘NVZ’ regulations in order to allow Welsh farmers to increase their fodder production this year and take account of the escalating costs of construction.
The Welsh Government should also lobby the UK Government to reduce VAT on fuel and fulfil its commitment to cut tariffs on imports of grain from the USA to substitute Ukrainian and Russian imports - as well as tariffs on other important materials such as steel.