The Farmers’ Union of Wales strongly condemned today’s announcement by Natural Resources and Food Minister Alun Davies that Wales will apply the maximum 15% modulation rate from direct farm payments, believing it will disadvantage farmers in Wales.

FUW president Emyr Jones said: “Scotland announced a rate of 9.5% today and other EU states and regions are expected to announce low rates.

“Under the Minister’s announcement, 15% of farmers’ direct payments (Pillar 1) will be transferred into the Rural Development programme (Pillar 2) which funds, amongst other things, agri-environment, processing, marketing tourism and wider rural development programmes.

“The FUW had called for a stepped approach to modulation as opposed to going for the maximum straight away and there are now fears that Welsh farmers will be disadvantaged over other farmers in the EU.

“The cut in the EU budget was already going to have a major impact on the single farm payment and today’s announcement will make things worse.

“The Minister had previously indicated that he didn’t want to unduly disrupt the industry in converting from a historic to a flat rate payment system, but we are concerned that today’s announcement could potentially create far more disruption than any payment rate decision.”

Loyal workers are often delighted on retirement to receive a memento of their service such as a watch or clock but Farmers' Union of Wales employee Meinir Bartlett was over the moon when members and colleagues presented her with - a traditional MMB-branded milk churn!

Mrs Bartlett of Furnace, Llanelli, retires this month and colleagues bought the churn on eBay from a seller in Llandudno and paid the extra for it to be posted to the union’s Carmarthen county office.

The churn will be a permanent reminder of the day she started her career in agriculture as a switchboard operator/receptionist with the then MMB (Milk Marketing Board) in Llanelli more than 40 years ago.

She has worked at the FUW's Carmarthen office for the past 17 years and recently she received this year's FUW/United Counties Agricultural & Hunters Society award for outstanding service to agriculture in Carmarthenshire.

While employed by the MMB she oversaw the introduction of the automatic recording of milk litres collected from individual farms throughout South Wales.

After the MMB ceased to exist in October 1994 she worked for its successor body, Milk Marque, until October 1995 when the office in Llanelli closed.

She then worked for West Wales TEC until April 1996 when she joined the FUW as administrative assistant. She was promoted to senior administrative assistant during February 2001 and to county executive officer in November 2006.

FUW president Emyr Jones said: "Meinir has been an outstanding success in her role as county executive officer and has made a significant contribution to agriculture in Carmarthenshire. She is an excellent ambassador and spokesman for agriculture."

For many years, Mrs Bartlett has organised a number of important agricultural events in the county including the FUW/HSBC Bank plc eve of the Welsh Dairy Show function and award for outstanding service to the Welsh dairy industry.

She also organised a dinner at Parc y Scarlets, Llanelli, in 2010 which raised £2,660 for the Royal Agricultural Benevolent Institution (RABI).

Mrs Bartlett's successor as Carmarthenshire county executive officer is David Waters, past operational police sergeant based at Carmarthen, who has worked for Dyfed Powys Police for nearly 27 years. 

He is from a local farming family and both his father and brother are still farming. He left farming to concentrate on a police career and still assist the family in all activities involving the farming business.

Before joining the police he worked for Dyfed County Council for five years in the highways department involved in road design and conformity with subsidised bus routes.

[caption id="attachment_2697" align="aligncenter" width="548"] Meinir Bartlett with her milk churn[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_2698" align="aligncenter" width="940"] FUW Carmarthenshire county chairman Catherine Nakielny (left) presents Meinir Bartlett with her retirement milk churn present.[/caption]

The Farmers’ Union of Wales has welcomed the Advertising Standards Authority’s (ASA) decision to uphold a complaint by the union about an RSPCA advertisement opposing badger culling and has called for the Charity Commission to take a similarly robust approach to the organisation.

An RSPCA press and poster advertisement had featured a syringe and a bullet alongside the headline “VACCINATE OR EXTERMINATE? The UK government wants to shoot England’s badgers. We want to vaccinate them - and save their lives”.

The FUW and Welsh politicians Simon Hart MP and Antoinette Sandbach AM had complained about the advertisements to the ASA, along with 116 members of the public.

The ASA ruled that consumers were likely to interpret the claim, along with the text "The UK government wants to shoot England's badgers", to mean that all badgers would be eradicated in the cull areas, and that claim therefore breached advertising rules.

FUW TB spokesman and vice president Brian Walters said the RSPCA had a track record of making misleading and threatening claims regarding badger culling and had also been censured by the ASA in 2006 following a complaint by the FUW over its “Back off Badgers” campaign.

“In 2012, the RSPCA’s chief executive Gavin Grant described the charity as ‘the oldest law enforcement agency still in existence in this country’ and threatened to campaign to ‘stop consumers drinking milk’ if supermarkets were unable to differentiate between ‘badger friendly milk’ and milk from English badger cull areas,” said Mr Walters.

“Similar, more ominous threats were made during a 2012 BBC Panorama documentary on the English badger cull during which Mr Grant said that ‘The spotlight of attention will be turned on those marksmen and on those who give permission for this cull to take place. They will be named and we will decide as citizens of this country whether they will be shamed.’

“All these factors show a very worrying lurch towards extremism which has occurred over the past two decades, and has undermined some of the core work of what used to be a highly respected charity.” 

Over the past decade, the FUW has submitted numerous complaints to the Attorney General, Charity Commission and ASA regarding the RSPCA’s use of extreme and misleading rhetoric, warning that failure to take action would merely increase the organisation’s tendency towards militant action.

“Such complaints have resulted in decisive action being taken by the ASA, but we believe that the Charity Commission has been less than forceful and its failure to act decisively against the RSPCA has brought all charitable organisations into disrepute.”

Mr Walters called for decisive action to be taken by the Charity Commission in relation to the RSPCA’s lobbying actions, which he described as “aggressive and threatening”.

Earlier this month, the National Audit Office concluded that the Charity Commission was failing to investigate abuses properly, wasting taxpayers' money and putting the good name of the charity sector as a whole at risk. Public Accounts Committee chairman Margaret Hodge claimed the commission had "tough questions to answer".

Mr Walters added: “Revelations earlier this year that the RSPCA has access to certain police records have simply added to what were already extreme concerns.

“It is high time that robust action is taken to return this organisation to the straight and narrow of doing what an animal welfare charity should be doing.”

The proposed closure of Dairy Crest’s Proper Welsh Milk dairy at Whitland in Carmarthenshire is a major body blow for the region's capacity to process milk locally, a Farmers' Union of Wales official said today.

FUW vice president Brian Walters, who runs a dairy farm near Carmarthen, said: "There is already a lack of processing capacity for milk in Wales and this move, so soon after Dairy Crest took over the dairy, comes at a time when there are increasing calls for more local processing.

"As a local dairy farmer I think it is a great pity because we need more processing capacity in Wales, not less, to help cut down on food miles and prepare ourselves for the abolition of Milk Quota in 2015.

"If we are hoping to produce more milk in the future to meet an expanding market, we need to be able to access more processing capacity locally, not further away."

Dairy Crest announced it is starting consultation with the 31 employees and their representatives regarding the proposed closure of Proper Welsh Milk dairy which it bought from administrators in March this year with the aim of maintaining production and employment and developing new products at the site.

However, production volumes had fallen short of expectations and significant investment was needed to bring the site up to Dairy Crest standards, they added.

Dairy Crest claimed lower sales and higher costs meant it was not possible to operate the site economically and they promised to do all they can to help employees affected by these proposals.

They said they would also work with customers to offer them alternative packing arrangements and continue to recruit farmers and invest in milk collection facilities around Carmarthen.

[caption id="attachment_1466" align="aligncenter" width="200"] FUW vice president Brian Walters[/caption]