[caption id="attachment_4541" align="aligncenter" width="500"] Brian Walters, second from right,receives the award from Welsh Dairy Show president Dai Davies. Also pictured are FUW Carmarthenshire county executive officer Meinir Bartlett and Welsh Dairy Show chairman Lynn Davies.[/caption]

Farmers' Union of Wales vice president Brian Walters has been presented with the FUW/United Counties Agriculture and Hunters Society's award for outstanding services to agriculture.

Together with his wife Ann and sons Aled and Seimon, Mr Walters runs a 500-acre holding at Clunmelyn, Ffynnonddrain, near Carmarthen. They have a dairy herd of 200 cows - some of which are pedigree Ayrshires - with 200 followers and 40 beef cattle.

They also run a self-catering farmhouse holiday unit and take pride in educating the occupants on the problems and joys of farming.

Mr Walters, a passionate and committed FUW supporter, has been a member since he started farming. He was Carmarthenshire county vice chairman from 1995 until 1997 when he became county chairman - a position he held for two years.

He is a past chairman of the FUW's Carmarthen branch milk committee (1995) and the union's central milk and dairy produce committee (1996-2000) and has been a vice president of the union since 2000.

Mr Walters was a district representative on Milk Marque's South Wales Board and then area representative on the Board of First Milk until 2002. He has represented the FUW on the Council of the Wales Federation of YFCs and the Organic Steering Group.

He has given evidence on TB in cattle to the House of Commons agriculture committee and, more recently, to the National Assembly's environment, planning and countryside committee.

Mr Walters has been fully involved in his local community for many years. He is a deacon of his local chapel - Elim, Ffynnonddrain - past chairman of St Peter's YFC, past Carmarthenshire YFC county chairman and past chairman of Wales YFC’s finance and organisation committee.

He has been fortunate to travel to Canada and Spain on behalf of the YFC and was asked to act as leader of a YFC trip to Sweden. He is currently chairman of the South Wales Ayrshire Club.

Over the last 18 years 15 students from Gelli Aur Agricultural College have had work experience on his farm.

He has acted in a local drama group for 20 years, compères local concerts and is an after-dinner speaker. During the past year, he has given over 50 TV and radio interviews in Welsh and English on various topics for Radio Cymru, Radio Wales and Radio 5 Live as well as participating in Farming Today on Radio 4 and Jeremy Vine’s programme on Radio 2.

He was also interviewed by a correspondent from the Wall Street Journal who was shown around his farm and introduced to local farmers.

[caption id="attachment_4538" align="aligncenter" width="400"] Brian Richards[/caption]

Failure of the Welsh bovine TB review panel to report to Minister John Griffiths in a timely manner could add to the number of cattle slaughtered and the suffering of farming families, according to the Farmers' Union of Wales dairy committee.

Newly-appointed committee vice chairman Brian Richards, who has lost 13 cattle over the past two years due to the disease, said today: "Bovine TB continues to ravage our communities, and has already led to the slaughter of around 6,000 cattle in Wales in 2011.

"The impact in terms of animal welfare and the emotional and financial effect it has on farming families is acute."

Mr Richards, of Pontarddulais, Carmarthenshire, said that, while committee members were extremely critical of the Welsh Government's decision to repeat work which had been already done, they fully recognised the magnitude of the task given to the new TB panel.

"However, committee delegates urged the panel members to do everything within their power to ensure they report back to the Minister as soon as is possible.

"Every day that goes past means more suffering for animals and more psychological devastation for families. We cannot afford to suffer any more avoidable delays."

[caption id="attachment_4535" align="aligncenter" width="400"] Dei Davies.[/caption]

The Welsh Government was called on by the Farmers' Union of Wales' milk and dairy produce committee today to carry out urgent impact assessments to ensure dairy producing areas are not devastated by imminent changes to the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).

Following a meeting of the committee in Aberystwyth, newly-elected committee chairman Dei Davies said: "The committee was unanimous in its view that the Welsh dairy industry could be severely hit unless the Welsh Government acts now to undertake impact assessments looking at a variety of flat-rate single payment models and the effects they would have on dairy production and dairy farm incomes in regions throughout Wales."

Mr Davies, a Flintshire dairy farmer, said failure to prepare properly for changes to the CAP after 2013 could mean financial collapse in many of Wales'' most productive dairying areas.

"The draft CAP proposals published on October 12 would have a severe impact on dairy farms if implemented in their current form, and it is essential that Welsh Government establishes an evidence base which can be used to show Europe why the draft regulations need to be changed.

"There is also a desperate need to look at the impact of different flat-rate models on entire constituencies within Wales where dairy farming is prevalent and makes a key contribution to local employment."

Under the current CAP proposals, every farm business within a region would ultimately receive the same payment for every hectare of land they farm. However, it is likely that Wales will be able to define different regions of Wales with different payment rates.

"Work done by the FUW has shown that average total payments to upland and lowland farm businesses are currently very similar, but lowland farms are, on average, almost half the size of upland farms.

"This means that failure by the Welsh Government to investigate and implement an appropriate definition of 'region' would result in entire constituencies in Wales losing tens of millions, with catastrophic consequences to communities and in terms of food production and local employment."

Under the current proposals, the Welsh Government has 21 months before it notifies Europe of its intentions.

"The Welsh Government must ensure that it has left no stone unturned in the search for a model which is appropriate for Welsh agriculture as a whole, otherwise we will be backed into a corner and forced to make catastrophic decisions because essential ground work has not been done," said Mr Davies.

"It is also critical that our Deputy Minister is able negotiate with his counterparts across the UK and with the European Commission while having all the facts and figures at his disposal. He should not be going into those meetings empty-handed."

Anglesey farmer Dafydd Roberts has been elected as the new chairman of the Farmers' Union of Wales's influential livestock, wool and marts committee.

Mr Roberts, a past county chairman and county president of the union's Anglesey branch, farms around 300 acres at Tryfil Uchaf, Llandrygan, Llanerchymedd.

Together with his wife Cadi, a retired teacher, he runs a flock of 500 Suffolk cross and half-bred sheep and 100 Friesian beef cattle.

Mr Roberts, who was born on the farm in 1945 and has lived there ever since, studied agriculture at the former Coleg Pencraig at Llangefni. He has four children and nine grandchildren.

He said: "It is a great honour for me to be elected as chairman of this important committee and I look forward to continuing the good work the previous chairman, Aeron Prysor Jones, has done for the union and its members."