With the children returning to school this week, Christmas already feels like a distant memory. This is particularly true for farmers who spent most of the holiday period again enduring the spates of bad weather and continuing with the day-to-day work on the farmyard.
Indeed, these long hours were highlighted last week in the Farmers’ Weekly annual Sentiment Survey of the farming sector, which found that, on average, farmers take just over seven days a year away as holiday per year. Interestingly, it was farmers in Wales that took the shortest breaks, with 29% of respondents saying they had no time away at all in a year.
Looking back at 2024, unsurprisingly perhaps, the survey identified the greatest challenge facing farmers of the past 12-months was extreme weather. Of the record 767 respondents to the survey, 40% of farmers saw weather as the main challenge (up from 31% last year). This will come as little surprise for Welsh farmers, who will recall last winter’s deluge of wet weather which caused havoc both for crops and during lambing. More recently, of course, we’ve seen storms Conall and Darragh usher in their own challenges - from flooding to damage to buildings and vehicles. With the climate and weather becoming increasingly extreme and unpredictable, how the sector learns to endure and adapt to these challenges will be key over the coming years.
Beyond the weather, it will come as little surprise to Welsh farmers that the second cause of concern for farmers was government policy. A fifth of respondents saw this as the greatest challenge to the sector (up 16%), with concern in Wales particularly sizable.
Considering the unrest and frustration seen across Wales and beyond over the past 12 months, the results of this survey are no surprise to Welsh farmers. Again, the concerns echoes discontent in the sector following the initial Sustainable Farming Scheme proposals, as well as the Welsh Government’s inaction over bTB and the introduction of the NVZ regulations which ignored the advice of Farmers and Natural Resources Wales.
Whilst progress has been made in the interim regarding the revised SFS proposals, much of this has been overshadowed by the UK Government’s proposed reforms to inheritance tax. This has caused frustration and a feeling of betrayal within the farming sector. Too often we’ve seen governments at both ends of the M4 impose a top down approach to law-making which has led to anger and disillusionment within the sector.
Considering concerns surrounding the extreme weather, government policy, and many other challenges, perhaps it’s unsurprising “demoralised” came out on top in the survey when farmers were asked how they feel about life in the agricultural sector.
However, despite the pessimism in the sector, it is crucial we do remember the crucial work Welsh farmers undertake on a daily basis in producing high quality food and safeguarding the environment. With a new year in front of us, the Farmers’ Union of Wales will continue to fight to ensure Welsh agriculture sectors’ concerns are heard loud and clear.