The past 12 months have been the hardest many Welsh farmers have seen for many years, Farmers' Union of Wales president Emyr Jones told the union's annual general meeting in Aberystwyth today (June 17).
Mr Jones said the poor weather conditions had led to a fall in the quality and quantity of crops, low milk yields, huge losses of livestock and poor lambing and calving percentages – all on top of significant drops in farmgate returns.
"These were the problems facing the industry before the horrendous snow which hit in mid-March and persisted for many weeks, adding to the losses and costs across Wales and, for some of those worst affected in Mid and North Wales, leading to financial and emotional impacts comparable to those we experienced in 2001 when out industry was hit by Foot and Mouth disease.
"The FUW has made its views clear on the Welsh Government’s response to this crisis and many of you know that our Minister and I have had some heated exchanges regarding this matter.
"The Welsh Government and the FUW both know where each other stand, and I see no point in repeating what has already been said.
"We have therefore welcomed the Government’s decision to commission reviews by Kevin Roberts and Hybu Cig Cymru into various long and short term impacts of the weather over the past year, and what might be done by Government and industry to ensure that such impacts are minimised in future.
"Having engaged in both those reviews, the Union looks forward to seeing the final reports, and to working to ensure a prosperous industry: whatever our differences, both the FUW and Welsh Government share that vision for a prosperous industry.
"The single most important set of tools we have available to us to secure such prosperity, boost resilience and allow appropriate reactions by government to extreme events come under the Common Agricultural Policy and no doubt Kevin Roberts will reveal in his report how he believes such tools might be used in future.
"The FUW believes that such tools are best used in the same way they are used to help and strengthen our main competitors in other regions of the EU – after all, that should be the whole point of having a common policy within a single European market, and any changes which do not take into account what our counterparts are doing to help their supply chains and export markets have the potential to cause severe damage our own economy.
"These are areas where the Welsh Government and the FUW have some differences of opinion and the Union has particular concerns that too little regard is paid to the policies of the Scots and Irish – our most significant competitors in many respects.
"But we are certainly of one mind when it comes to our belief that the CAP and EU membership are both critical to the economic viability of Wales.
"When it comes to the debate over EU membership, farmers should be in no doubt that our exit from the EU will not result in less red tape, since we will still be required to comply with EU standards if we are to import into the EU.
"And who is to say what our import quota for lamb or beef, or import tariffs, could look like if we were outside the EU?
"We know all too well what exclusion from the EU market can do to our prices: look at what happened to our beef industry from 1996 and the impact of FMD in 2001 – both bitter experiences of what being excluded from the EU market can do to our prices and farm incomes.
"Given that successive UK governments have made it clear that they do not want to provide support for agriculture, and are quite happy to liberalise food importation, it is difficult to imagine how we would survive outside the EU.
"Perhaps our exit from the EU is unlikely – I certainly hope so – but a threat of a similar nature has come from the creeping renationalisation of new CAP policies which has occurred over the past year as part of the horse trading between member states during the CAP negotiations.
"So far that horse trading has seen the UK giving up more of its Pillar 2 budget than any other member state, when we were entitled to a significant increase, and UK agreement with an increase in levels of coupled payments for other member states but only on the condition that our own threshold be reduced to almost half of what would be available in other countries.
"These are just two examples out of a number which would see Wales placed at a disadvantage to its competitors, and while we all wish to see a degree of flexibility which is appropriate to Wales, we cannot underestimate the dangers of moving away from overarching common policies.
"Put simply, the FUW believes that adopting a kind of island mentality and focusing in on aspirations for Welsh farming without taking into account the bigger picture, by weighing up what our competitors are doing and are likely to do in future, represents a huge danger for the economics of our entire food chain."