The Farmers’ Union of Wales has appointed a new County Executive Officer and Deputy County Executive Officer to serve the members in the the counties of Gwent and Glamorgan.

Sharon Pritchard joins the team as County Executive Officer, bringing with her a significant background in agriculture having been involved on the family farm in Talgarth, Brecon and she also has over twenty years of experience working with McCartneys in Brecon and Builth.

Helen Thomas, who has been appointed as Deputy County Executive Officer, has been a loyal and respected part of the Gwent FUW team for 14 years and has also worked with members in Glamorgan in her previous role as an administrative assistant with the Union.

Speaking about the appointments, FUW Group Managing Director Guto Bebb said: “We have made two excellent appointments to serve members in the counties of Gwent and Glamorgan. Both Sharon and Helen come with a wealth of knowledge and expertise in the agriculture sector and I have no doubt that members in both counties will be well looked after by the new team.”

Dylasau Uchaf, a National Trust tenant farm, is home to the Roberts family. Glyn and his daughter Beca keep a watchful eye on the land and livestock here in the Eidda valley, hidden away between the upper Conwy and the Machno. The sheep and beef farm is about 4 miles from Betws y Coed and 3 miles from Ysbyty Ifan. 

A lot has changed up here in the last 5 years, says Glyn Roberts, who takes his responsibility of producing food and looking after the land seriously. Working with Bangor University and Hybu Cig Cymru-Meat Promotion Wales (HCC) a carbon audit was carried out on the farm highlighting where the business is doing well and where there is room for improvement when it comes to reducing carbon emissions. 

Using the result of the carbon audit the family hopes to be in a better position to highlight areas of improvements and lower their carbon footprint by increasing efficiency, lowering feed cost and increasing growth rate, less days to slaughter, reduced burden of disease, reducing the use of fertilizer by knowing the farm's needs and also using less fuel, are all things that are now being taken into consideration.

Pembrokeshire husband and wife team Jeff and Sarah Wheeler, who farm at Clyngwyn, Efailwen, Clynderwen, feel the current Control of Agricultural Pollution Regulations are going to make their business unviable and are asking the Welsh Government to take a hard look at what they’re asking the industry to do. The third generation to farm here, the couple milk150 cows on a spring calving system, looking after 195 acres which is down to grass land (of which 35 acres is rented), plus 50 acres of woodland. 

Under current NVZ regulations in other UK and EU Nations and previous regulations in Wales, farmers with more than 80% of their holding designated as grassland had the ability to apply for a derogation to increase the annual livestock manure Nitrate whole farm limit from 170kg N per ha to 250kg N per ha.

Despite the same option being included in Welsh Government’s draft Water Resources regulations published in 2020, it was omitted from the regulations before being laid in front of the Senedd in 2021 without any form of warning or explanation. 

Jeff says: “We’ve got enough storage for slurry but the stocking rates will hit us badly. They’ve brought in the nitrate limit, which wasn’t in the initial 'draft regulation, it came out of the blue. Any other country with such regulations has a derogation on the nitrate limit. If you're 80% down to grassland, which we are, you can keep more stock in other countries. Why is that not the case here now?”

A farming family from North Wales who are leading the way in looking after the environment and producing food, having recently undertaken extensive peatland restoration work on their farm in conjunction with Snowdonia National Park Authority and the Welsh Peatlands SMS project to develop the first Peatland Code project in Wales. 

The Roberts family, who have farmed at Pennant Farm, Llanymawddwy for several generations, keep beef and sheep, mainly hill ewes and some crossbreeds. A small suckler herd and crossbred ewes are also kept on the lowland and the family have diversified into holiday lets as well. There is a strong sense of responsibility when it comes to looking after the environment and creating biodiverse habitats, as well as producing food.

Taking their environmental ambitions forward, Farmers’ Union of Wales members Lisa and Sion Roberts, set in motion restoration works to re-profile and block the extensive complexes of hags and gullies across the Bwlch y Groes site, which were carried out by experienced peatland contractors at the end of the 2020 and start of 2021.