In a recent written statement by Lee Waters MS, Deputy Minister for Climate Change, it was revealed that Welsh Government is planning to increase tree planting targets to 5,000 hectares per year. Welsh Government's previous targets were 2,000 hectares per year, rising to 4,000ha as soon as possible.

According to the Minister, Wales needs to plant 180,000 hectares by 2050 in line with the recommendations of the Committee on Climate Change (CCC). Last year only 290ha of woodland was planted in Wales. The Deputy Minister called this a ‘call to arms’ in order to meet climate change commitments, as well as provide a wide range of other benefits to Wales.

A Trees Task Force has also found that “current Welsh Government funding for tree planting has been too inconsistent and difficult to access. While it is important to ensure that new woodland is planted in the right places and in the right way, the process for doing this is too slow and bureaucratic”

Welsh Government believes that these revised targets will be met by communities, farmers and other landowners across Wales, as opposed to new woodland planted by the Welsh Government.

Over the next two years, the Minister has committed £17 million to new windows of the Glastir Woodland Creation scheme, and a new Woodland for Wales Action Plan will be launched later this year.

Concerns that divergence between agricultural policies and funding in the UK and EU will give EU farmers a competitive advantage have been consistently highlighted by the FUW for the past five years - and in light of the latest EU CAP reforms, other commentators are now echoing these concerns according to the Farmers Weekly.

As part of a framework that was agreed by policy makers in Brussels on 25th June, EU member states will be given greater flexibility when it comes to supporting farmers under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), once it has been enshrined into law.

While the new five-year CAP period commences on 1st January 2023, European Governments will have to submit their own national strategic plans for meeting new CAP objectives by the end of 2021.

As part of this CAP reform, Member states will still be able to pay active farmers with direct payments using £163 billion (around 70%) of the total CAP budget.

However, at least 25% of the direct payments budget - around £41 billion - will be set aside for voluntary ‘eco schemes’, including organic farming, agroecology and pest management.

The Welsh Government has pledged to maintain the same budget for the 2022 Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) year.

This was confirmed by Lesley Griffiths, Minister for Rural Affairs, North Wales and Trefnydd, in response to a question from Cefin Campbell MS, Plaid Cymru rural affairs spokesman.

However, the commitment that farmers will be paid at the same rate as in 2019 remains subject to the funding the Welsh Government receives from the UK Government, which will be announced in the Comprehensive Spending Review in the autumn.

Mr Campbell also highlighted that around 40% of the £838 million budget for the 2014-2020 Rural Development Programme remains unspent, however, the Minister responded saying she remains confident that the remaining £362 million would be spent before the December 2023 deadline.

The FUW is urging the Welsh Government to announce its decision on the extension of Glastir contracts as soon as possible given that around a quarter of Welsh farmers rely on such agri-environment schemes for support to protect and enhance the environment.

The Foundation for Common Land (FCL) has slammed Defra’s decision to exclude low input and unimproved grassland from its Sustainable Farming Incentive - a scheme which is supposed to bridge the transition from the ‘old’ BPS payments system to the new English Environmental Land Management (ELM) public goods payment scheme.

Under Defra’s Agricultural Transition Plan, English farmers with a claim of £30,000 or less will see a five per cent cut to their BPS in 2021, followed by a 20 per cent cut in 2022, 35 per cent in 2023 and 50 per cent in 2024. Higher payments will be cut by significantly more.

With work on England’s Environmental Land Management scheme still in its early stages, the Sustainable Farming Incentive was supposed to fill the gap caused by the cuts to BPS payments.

However, despite Defra’s commitment that all English BPS applicants would be able to apply including those in existing Stewardship Schemes, low input and unimproved grassland - some of England’s most precious wildlife habitats - have been excluded.

According to the Foundation for Common Land, much of England’s lowland unimproved grassland is common land, including 20,000 ha of the New Forest, the Malvern Hills and Minchinhampton, the Devon heathlands and Cumbria’s coastal marshes.