Farmers' Union of Wales leaders today called for the early reinstatement of the Tir Mynydd scheme which supports the less productive farming areas of Wales when they met deputy agriculture minister Alun Davies today.
FUW president Emyr Jones, his deputy Glyn Roberts and deputy policy director Rhian Nowell-Phillips urged the minister to reinstate the scheme in time for the 2012 IACS exercise dealing with single farm payments.
"Due to the low number of farmers entering Tir Mynydd's replacement scheme, Glastir, and the expected uncertainties over CAP reform we called for Tir Mynydd payments to be reinstated in time for the 2012 IACS due to be paid in 2013," said Mr Jones.
The Tir Mynydd scheme supports and maintains livestock production in the less productive farming areas of Wales. It is funded by the Rural Development Plan for Wales 2007-2013 which is financed by the Welsh Government and the EU.
Approximately 80% of the total 1.6 million hectares of agricultural land in Wales falls within the designated Less Favoured Area (LFA). Some 56% of the land in Wales is in the Severely Disadvantaged Area (SDA) and 23% in the Disadvantaged Area (DA).
Glastir is a five-year land management scheme, available to farmers and land managers across Wales, that the Welsh Government wants to replace the existing four agri-environment schemes from 2012.
"As well as Glastir, we followed up on other issues concerning CAP reform which we originally raised with Mr Davies in Brussels last week," said Mr Jones.
"We also brought up the plight of the dairy industry and highlighted the disparity between milk prices in the UK and the rest of Europe.
"We called for Welsh dairy farmers to have contracts which reflect some elements of a pricing formula so that producers can plan ahead for the future."