FORMER Farmers' Union of Wales deputy president Tom H Jones FRAgS has been elected a life member of the union in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the union and Welsh agriculture over many years.

Mr Jones fills the vacancy created by the death of influential past president Hugh Robert Môn Hughes OBE. Mr Jones of Maes Mawr, Llanfechell, Amlwch, was the union's deputy president in 1989-90 and vice president between 1984 and1989.

Mr Jones, a well-known dairy farmer, was awarded the FUW's internal award for services to Welsh agriculture in 2007.

He was educated at the University College of North Wales Bangor from 1968 to 1972, graduating with an honours degree in agriculture and agricultural economics.

From 1972 to 1975 he was a Milk Marketing Board (MMB) farm management consultant, working in East Anglia and Dyfed.

He was elected the MMB's regional member for North Wales in 1990. Three years later he was appointed a non-executive director of Dairy Crest plc, and was a member of the Audit Committee and chaired the Appointments Committee.

A past chairman of the Welsh Federation of Grassland Society, Mr Jones is also a former member of the Welsh Office Agriculture Advisory Panel and remains a member of the Welsh Assembly Government's Dairy Industry Working Group.

In February 2004, he was appointed a member of the Milk Development Council and in June the same year he was elected as a member of Anglesey County Council where he still represents the Llanfechell ward and holds the finance portfolio on the cabinet.

Announcing Mr Jones' selection at a meeting of the union's grand council, FUW life member Glyn Powell said: "Several names were put forward and after discussions on the amount of service they had given to the union we decided to recommend the election of Tom Jones." The recommendation was accepted unanimously by the union's grand council.

Responding to the appointment, Mr Jones said: "I am very grateful for this acknowledgment from my own kind of people and I consider it a great honour and privilege to be joining such an elite group."

THE Farmers' Union of Wales today broadly welcomed the Welsh Assembly Government's decision to invest £3.3 million in the Welsh dairy industry over the next three years.

The project, funded by the Supply Chain Efficiencies (SCE) scheme operates through the Rural Development Plan for Wales 2007-2013, which is funded by the Welsh Assembly Government and the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development.

The SCE scheme provides financial support for co-operation projects that will develop new products, processes and technologies in the agriculture, food and forestry sectors.

The aim of the project is to help improve levels of efficiency, sustainability and added value in the dairy supply chain.

FUW milk committee chairman Eifion Huws said: "We are glad that the government has heeded our warning and are planning to invest in what is truly a struggling industry.

"I am sure that many farmers will find advice, support and information on issues such as energy efficiency, maximising production efficiency and profits, beneficial, but advice alone will not help tackle the problems that dairy farmers face on a daily basis.

"Without a fair price for their milk, a number of farmers will find that they don't have the means to act on the advice given to them.

"The crux of the matter is that many farmers are still being paid less for their milk than it costs to produce it.

"Of course this investment is a step in the right direction but without greater transparency throughout the supply chain farmers will continue to be short changed.

"Farmers in Wales are already bearing the brunt of lower milk prices compared to the UK as a whole and steps need to be taken to ensure that Welsh farmers are given a level playing field.

"All the sustainability and efficiency measures in the world cannot make a dairy farm profitable without a prolonged period of price stability.

"Only then will farmers have the confidence to invest in the future."

The Farmers' Union of Wales today warned farmers to take extra care when filling in their single payment forms - or risk losing all of their Single Payments.

FUW president Gareth Vaughan said: "Over recent years the FUW has dealt with significant numbers of cases where inadvertent errors have led to members losing a large proportion of their Single Payments.

"In some cases, tiny errors such as a box ticked incorrectly have led to the loss of entire Single Payments, equating to losses of tens of thousands of pounds for farm businesses."

The FUW has lobbied the Welsh Assembly Government and the European Parliament on the issue over a long period, urging them to adopt a proportionate approach to mistakes that are obvious errors or are the result of exceptional circumstances.

"However, WAG insists that the rules relating to obvious errors are extremely narrow and that EU auditors give them little or no leeway to be fair. This is even the case where all parties acknowledge that an inaccuracy was an inadvertent error," Mr Vaughan said.

He also urged farmers to carefully check the IACS/SAF acknowledgement letters that are issued by WAG as soon as they are received, and to notify any errors to WAG immediately.

"If WAG detects an error, the first a farmer may know about it is when they fail to receive their Single Payment in December. They will then have to go through the appeals process, which can take years and cost thousands of pounds, with no guarantee of a positive outcome at the end."

Mr Vaughan added: "Farmers should also notify WAG of any exceptional circumstances or Force Majeure that may affect their businesses as soon they are in a position to do so.

"We believe that many of the penalties applied under the current regime are completely immoral and disproportionate, and some of the cases the FUW has dealt with are truly heartbreaking. We are therefore committed to fighting for a more proportionate and fair penalty system.

"However, under the current regime the best way to minimise the risk of penalties is by checking and double-checking every single detail on the IACS, and by exercising extreme caution with regard to every aspect of the farm management and paperwork."

Farmers' Union of Wales president Gareth Vaughan today hailed the growing support the union has received for its campaign against HM Revenue & Customs' (HMRC) "absurd" decision to force farmers in areas with no or poor broadband provision to fill out their monthly or quarterly VAT returns on-line from 1 April this year.

Mr Vaughan, who lives in a broadband blackspot in Powys, welcomed Clwyd West MP David Jones' decision to protest to HMRC's director general Dave Hartnett stressing there are many areas of North Wales, including Gwytherin and Cwmpenanner in his constituency, which have no satisfactory broadband access.

Mr Vaughan also welcomed support from website ISPreview.co.uk - an independent source of Internet Service Provider (ISP) information, listings and reviews since 1999 - which stated HMRC's move "appears absurd" at a time when the Government's own Universal Service Commitment (USC), which aims to deliver a minimum broadband ISP speed of at least 2Mbps to virtually every household in the UK by 2012, has not even begun to be implemented.

In his letter to Mr Hartnett, Mr Jones described HMRC's position as wholly unreasonable and asked for an exemption for farmers in such circumstances. He has also written to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling, pointing out the unreasonableness of HMRC's position.

Mr Vaughan said: "We do not have broadband access at my farm in Dolfor, near Newtown - we were told our line is too antiquated for broadband.

"It's obvious that the HMRC don't fully appreciate the problems facing farmers and other businesses in rural communities like Powys. The age structure of the industry is such that lots of us grew up before the widespread use of computers and we're going to struggle."

The FUW's development director Emyr James had earlier contacted HMRC to find out what alternatives could they suggest if farmers were not able to go on-line. They replied that farmers could ask family or friends, who have a computer, to offer them Internet access or employ the services of an agent who could file the return on their behalf.

"This is a typically heavy-handed government approach, showing very little appreciation of the true situation for many small-to-medium-sized enterprises," said Mr James.

As a temporary solution the FUW will provide a service at its county offices where staff will file members' VAT returns on-line on their behalf. The paper-based summary should be completed in the normal way and taken to the county office.