Farmers Guardian has launched an industry-wide survey to understand more about the skills gap in agriculture, what training opportunities are available, and recruitment challenges facing employers.

To help understand the current careers landscape, they are seeking views from across agriculture and are asking employees and employers to share their opinions and experiences about the opportunities for personal development and training within the industry.

The findings from the survey will help to shape the future of employment in agriculture.

Anyone who completes the survey will be entered into a prize draw and the first four selected will win £50 for their efforts.

For more information and to take the survey whether you are an employee or employer, please click here.

Many will be aware that Welsh Government published a consultation entitled Sustainable Farming and our Land: Simplifying Agricultural Support on 31st July. This latest consultation is not a one hundred page plus MK III edition of the 2018 Brexit and our Land and 2019 Sustainable Farming and our Land consultations on shaping a Sustainable Farming Scheme based on the principles of ‘public money’ for ‘public goods’. However, do not be fooled by it’s subtle heading.

Schedule 5 to the UK Agricultural Bill includes powers for the Welsh Ministers to amend and extend retained direct EU legislation and modify legislation relating to the Rural Development Programme (RDP). Welsh Government is proposing to continue with the existing CAP regulatory framework until new agricultural support schemes are available - probably after 2023 - while making some changes that are in some areas relatively minor, and in others significant - particularly with regard to Pillar 2 and the principles which underpin the RDP.

The first half of the consultation document - up to question seventeen - sets out eleven proposals for making adjustments to the current Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) from the 2021 scheme year until the new Sustainable Farming Scheme is developed and implemented. Despite the consultation document providing for an ‘easy’ read, many of these proposals such as setting the BPS ceiling annually, separate cross-border payments, changes to requirements for late supporting documents and the abolishment of Greening rules and the Young Farmer Scheme raise important questions and concerns which must be considered and addressed before any changes are made before the end of the year.

In response to a UK Government white paper on internal markets, the Farmers’ Union of Wales (FUW) has stressed the importance of protecting Welsh farmers against unfair competition from other parts of the UK and countries across the globe, and that Welsh devolution must be respected.

In his introduction to the UK Internal Market White Paper, Alok Sharma MP, Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, highlights how increasing differences between rules and standards applied by different Governments in the UK’s four nations after Brexit could cause market distortion, discrimination and unfair competition for businesses in a way not seen for hundreds of years.The White Paper therefore proposes measures to prevent such impacts based on the principles of ‘non-discrimination’ and ‘mutual recognition’

The FUW had been highlighting the need to address this issue since the EU Referendum in 2016 and, in July 2018, published a detailed paper considering the matter entitled 'Filling the Void - Steps towards a post-Brexit UK policy framework. However, while the FUW welcomes the UK Government’s recognition of this issue, we are extremely concerned at the suggestion that rules could simply be dictated by London, rather than there being a means by which to reach agreement between UK Governments. Such a move could undermine devolution and work to the disadvantage of Welsh farmers.