Three years ago today (24 June), on the day the EU Referendum result was announced, the Farmers’ Union of Wales welcomed then Prime Minister David Cameron’s decision to delay invoking Article 50 and called for the UK and EU to agree on a sensible timetable for Brexit.
FUW President Glyn Roberts went on to urge the UK Government to start work to build a positive future for farming and the rural economy outside the EU and warned that an EU exit over too short a period would have dire consequences for both the UK and the EU.
“There is a monumental amount of work to do in terms of changing domestic arrangements and legislation, including in terms of Welsh devolved legislation, not to mention unravelling us from the EU budget to which we were previously committed, negotiating trade deals and dealing with issues such as border controls.
“Such issues will also require a huge amount of work at the EU level, and we do not believe a rapid exit over a couple of years would be in either the UK or the EU’s interests,” said Mr Roberts in June 2016.
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Tenants and family farms should be protected by capping future scheme payments at well below the 300,000 Euro rate which currently applies in Wales and by strengthening the active farmer rule, the chairman of the Farmers’ Union of Wales Tenants Committee has said.