The Farmers' Union of Wales today warned farmers to double check their Single Application Form (SAF) acknowledgment slips after a series of computer scanning errors had been discovered.

"SAF scanning errors have been discovered by a number of our county executive offices across Wales and had these gone unnoticed our members could have lost significant sums of money," said FUW's Carmarthenshire county executive officer Meinir Bartlett.

"We are particularly concerned at the sheer number of errors that we have noticed on acknowledgement slips sent out by the Assembly Government to our members. Thankfully our staff and members have spotted these by cross-checking them against photocopies of their original SAF forms"

One discrepancy involving a Carmarthenshire FUW member showed a 5.28ha field scanned as 1.00ha, and out of a total of 74 field entries in the county, there were 12 scanning errors.

The breakdown of errors is: crosses declaring the intention to claim Single Payment on four fields not scanned; cross declaring the intention to claim Tir Mynydd on one field not scanned; details of field "statuses" not scanned on five occasions; and declaration of an intention to claim Glastir not scanned on two occasions.

"Had these errors by the Welsh Assembly Government not been picked up, they could have led to significant losses for the businesses concerned," said Mrs Bartlett.

"Every year the FUW deals with members who have lost significant sums of money due to minor errors on extremely complicated forms and some end up losing sums that are equivalent to their entire annual incomes.

"Very few of those people get their money back due to the strict enforcement of EU rules relating to obvious errors and exceptional circumstances.

"We fully appreciate that such errors are a part and parcel of normal life and that no system is infallible. But when it comes to farmers making equivalent errors, they have the book thrown at them and can be fined like criminals, even for placing a single tick in the wrong box.

"For those who have lost thousands of pounds and had the viability of their businesses put on the line due to errors that everyone - including officials - agrees were accidental, this will smack of one rule for them and one rule for us.

"But the bottom line is that this is firm evidence of the need to treat errors as errors, and allow them to be corrected without fining people, no matter whether the errors are made by farmers or the Welsh Assembly Government."

The Farmers' Union of Wales' Pembrokeshire branch is keen to highlight the achievements of younger farmers in the county so it has extended the period for nominations for its annual Countryside Award.

To be eligible for the award the nominee must be 40 years of age or under on January 1, 2010; actively involved in agricultural production or land management; and normally resident within Pembrokeshire.

A cash prize, perpetual trophy and a year's free FUW membership will be awarded.

Further details and nomination forms can be obtained by telephoning the Pembrokeshire FUW Office on 01437 762913. All nominations must now be submitted by Friday 4 June 2010.

Last year the award was won by a young farmer who achieved a 20-year ambition to run his own dairy farm when his local council offered him a holding.

Thirty-three-year-old Julian Nicholas, of Lower Coxhill Farm, Narberth, who has worked in agriculture all his life, was presented with the award plus £100 and a year's free FUW membership during last August's Pembrokeshire County Show.

Inviting nominations for this year's award, FUW Pembrokeshire county chairman Dai Miles said: "If the agricultural industry is to have a future in Pembrokeshire it is vital that we not only encourage new entrants into the industry, but that we also acknowledge the hard work of existing younger farmers and nurture them."

TWO Aberystwyth University students from Glamorganshire currently studying agriculture - David Evans from Caerphilly and Rachel Barrett of Pontllanfraith - have each received £100 study grants from the Farmers' Union of Wales Walter Rowlands Memorial Fund.

Mr Rowlands was the FUW's first county executive officer in Glamorganshire. He served the union from 1956 to 1985 when he passed away prematurely.

To recognise his contribution to the union, the Walter Rowlands Memorial Fund grants an annual award of £100 to students, living within the old Glamorgan county boundary, who have been accepted for an agricultural course. The award is a contribution towards the cost of books and equipment.

David Evans lives at Groeswen Farm, Groeswen, near Caerphilly, which was established by his grandfather. In 2006, he completed a BTEC 1st Diploma (Distinction) at Pencoed Agricultural College and then continued his studies at Coleg Gelli Aur, achieving a triple distinction in a National Diploma in Agriculture. He also received the Ben Evans Award for Student of the Year in 2009.

As a self-financing student he spent every weekend and holiday gaining practical experience on a neighbour's hill farm near Caerphilly. He passed his Blue Certificate for shearing and bought his own equipment to work alongside other experienced farmers.

His spare time is spent training his two sheep dogs, improving his riding skills or designing equipment that would reduce the time and workload of routine tasks around the farm. He is currently studying for a BSc (Hons) Degree in Agriculture at Aberystwyth.

Rachel Barrett, of Heath Road, Pontllanfraith, Blackwood, does not have a farming background but she loves working with animals and has great interest in environmental issues.

She initially believed that she wanted to be a veterinary surgeon but since starting her course in Aberystwyth it has opened her mind to the many opportunities she can follow including working with Defra or in habitat ecology. She would like to have her own smallholding one day and be as self sufficient as possible.

She is currently studying a Foundation (FdSc) Agriculture course at Aberystwyth University and her hobbies include being a member of the St John Ambulance Brigade with whom she has many qualifications within different areas.

She enjoys learning sign language and has helped raise funds for the St David's Foundation. She is also a member of the University Mountaineering and ballroom dancing clubs.

FUW Glamorganshire county executive officer Adrian Evans said: "The judging panel was unanimous in agreeing that they were both very deserving of the award and decided to make two awards for the first in the fund's long history."

Applications for the 2011 Walter Rowlands Memorial Award should be sent to FUW's Glamorganshire County Office, 58 Eastgate, Cowbridge, Vale of Glamorgan, CF71 7AB, by 30 November 2010. For further details call 01446 774838.

THE future of the family farm must be a major priority of a new Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), Farmers' Union of Wales president Gareth Vaughan told AMs at the National Assembly today.

Presenting the union's evidence to the Assembly rural development sub-committee's inquiry into reform of the CAP, he said: "I would like to thank you for holding this inquiry into one of the most important issues facing the agricultural industry in Wales over the coming years.

"However, I believe that our evidence shows that the future of the CAP is not just of importance to Welsh agriculture but also to our wider communities - to the very backbone of our rural economy and to every Welsh citizen."

In 2005, the Treasury and Defra published "A Vision for the Common Agricultural Policy", setting out the UK Government''s vision for EU agricultural policy to 2020.

The key policy reforms proposed included: alignment of import tariffs for all agricultural sectors with other sectors of the economy; abolition of production subsidies; abolition of price and direct income support measures; and abolition of export subsidies.

Following publication of the policy, the UK Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute (FAPRI) was commissioned by the Welsh Assembly Government and other administrations to analyse the impact of these key reform proposals on agriculture in Wales and the other devolved regions. The results, published in July 2009, revealed significant adverse impacts for Welsh agriculture and rural communities.

"To look at the possible worst case outcome of CAP reform for Wales we need look no further than the policies of the previous UK Government and the impact of these as predicted by FAPRI," said Mr Vaughan.

"Their work concludes that scaling down agricultural support and opening up our markets will have dramatic consequences for Welsh agriculture, rural employment and our rural communities.

"Such a watering down of the CAP would also mean abandoning our food security and deconstructing a framework which would otherwise be instrumental in tackling the key challenges of our age - namely, mitigating climate change without undermining food production.

"The FUW believes that to address these issues we need a robust CAP which is funded at a level that reflects the importance of these challenges and above all has the future of the family farm at its core," Mr Vaughan added.

The future of food will be the topic for discussion in a question and answer session during the Farmers' Union of Wales' Carmarthenshire county branch's annual general meeting at Cwmcerrig Farm Shop, Gorslas, on Monday June 7 (7.15pm for 7.30).

The panel will consist of Wales's Dairy Development Centre manager John Griffiths, Cwmcerrig Farm Shop director Roland Watkins, Wales YFC rural affairs committee chairman Dylan Jones and FUW senior policy officer Hazel Wright.

FUW Carmarthenshire county executive officer Meinir Bartlett said Cwmcerrig Farm Shop is the ideal venue for the meeting, especially the discussion on the future of food. "I am well aware that the Watkins family is passionate about producing good food.

"Their shop provides an alternative outlet for the pedigree Hereford Beef, Texel lambs, turkeys, chickens, geese, ducks and eggs reared in the traditional way on their family-run farm.

"To get the premium stock desired they had to innovate and that is the reason they built the farm shop. They take a great deal of pride in producing such a wide variety of food within just a few hundred yards of the shop which also stocks many other foods from all parts of Carmarthenshire."

The financial penalties applied to Welsh farmers for minor mistakes while filling in complicated application forms for single farm payments and other EU schemes have shot up by 175% to over £2m a year, the Farmers' Union of Wales has discovered.

Last year, 1,358 farmers in Wales lost a total of £2,156,237 compared to £783,470 by 1,133 farmers in 2008, £1,035,042 by 1,789 farmers in 2007 and £855,398 by 1,923 farmers in 2006.

"We have significant long standing concerns regarding the proportionality and circumstances in which financial penalties are applied to farmers due to mistakes on paperwork or insignificant breaches of EU regulations relating to the Common Agricultural Policy, and the past twelve months has seen a significant escalation in the level of penalties applied," said FUW president Gareth Vaughan today.

In light of these concerns he recently wrote to the National Assembly for Wales's rural development sub-committee chairman Rhodri Glyn Thomas, urging the committee to look into the issue of penalties applied to farmers.

"Examples include families affected by personal tragedies losing significant sums due to minor errors on paperwork, despite these being the direct result of exceptional circumstances, and farmers losing their entire incomes for periods of more than a year due to inadvertent minor errors being made while filling out complex forms," wrote Mr Vaughan.

The FUW also raised its concerns at a meeting with Welsh Assembly Government officials who made it clear that EU auditors had insisted that the level of penalties should be increased.

"It therefore appears that EU auditors are acting disproportionately by failing to allow the Welsh Assembly Government to act reasonably," said Mr Vaughan.

After receiving Mr Vaughan's letter, Mr Thomas wrote to rural affairs minister Elin Jones seeking an explanation. In her reply, she released the latest figures and confirmed "the total cost of penalties has increased significantly in 2009" due to cross-compliance penalties.

She explained the increase results from changes to the Welsh Assembly Government's system following an EC audit in December 2008 which criticised the level of financial reductions for cross-compliance breaches before and including 2008.

"The penalty system now meets the audit and regulatory requirements that, as a general rule, negligent breaches must be penalised at 3%," she added.

Mr Thomas has now told Mr Vaughan the sub-committee will investigate how the application of the rules in Wales compares with other EU national and regional governments.

"If the research shows that the Welsh Government is applying the rules more strictly than other governments, and that farmers in Wales are receiving bigger and more numerous fines than those in other countries, then the sub-committee will consider whether we need to carry out an inquiry into the matter," Mr Thomas added.

Mr Vaughan said: "We are indebted to Mr Thomas and his committee for having taken up this issue and I now look forward to seeing the results of their further inquiries.

"In the meantime, farmers should be under no illusions regarding the financial consequences of even the most minor mistake.

"Check, double check and triple check everything which relates to Cross Compliance and the Single Payment, and do not assume that commonsense or proportionality applies.

"Even the most minor error, such as a tick in the wrong box or being a day late retagging animals, can result in massive financial penalties."