The Farmers’ Union of Wales (FUW) has described a Welsh Government weather summit held at the Royal Welsh Show as an important step in terms of taking action to minimise current and future impacts of the weather on Wales’ agriculture industry.
Speaking after the summit, which was chaired by Cabinet Secretary Lesley Griffiths and attended by farming organisations and rural charities, government officials, Natural Resources Wales, Dŵr Cymru/Welsh Water and others, FUW President Glyn Roberts said: “A number of extreme weather derogations have been granted by Welsh Government following our requests in June, and we had called for this summit to take place in early July.
“This was therefore a welcome next step, and a number of further actions which could be taken were discussed at the meeting.
“In particular, we emphasised the need for decisive action to be taken as soon as possible in terms of the relaxation of rules and other measures, as every day that goes by farmers are struggling to provide water for livestock and essential winter fodder is being used up on farms across Wales.”
Mr Roberts said that there were a number of steps that the FUW had urged Welsh Government to look into, with a view to decisions and announcements being made over the coming days.
“Over the past month we have provided details to Welsh Government of the problems being faced by farmers around Wales, as well as steps which could be taken by Government to help the situation.
“We welcome the fact that some of these steps have been taken, but had requested this meeting in order to ensure all possible actions could be properly explored.”
“Now that that has finally happened we expect to see far more progress.”