The news that some 82.5 per cent of Welsh farmers will receive Single Payments totalling more than £200million from Tuesday, 1st December, which is the first day that the European Commission allows payments to be made, is welcome good news and proof that Elin Jones AM, the hard working Minister for Rural Affairs in the Plaid driven One Wales Government is working hard for our farmers.
In times of financial difficulty, the fact that so many farmers can expect to receive their Single Payment in the first month of the seven-month payment period will help. The success of Rural Payments Wales matches last year’s achievement, in addition to processing 258 Advance payments worth about £5million in mid October to farmers affected by the demise of Dairy Farmers of Britain.
Now don't get me wrong, these are concrete steps to help our farmers, but, more needs to be done, with that in mind I welcome the National Assembly's rural development sub-committee’s call for an ombudsman to help protect and develop the dairy farming industry in Wales and support the call for more to be done to encourage demand for quality Welsh dairy products as has happened already with Welsh Beef and Welsh Lamb.
Sadly the news that the number of dairy farmers in Wales has dropped by a third in five years and the warnings that more needs to be done to save the industry along with the fact that Farmers are also not getting a fair price for the milk they produce, when compared to the price charged by retailers to consumers, will not come as a surprise to most people.
More needs to be done to give our dairy farmers a fair deal and one concrete step could be for our public bodies to increase the proportion of dairy products they procured locally in order to help safeguard milk producers and to give them a fair price for their milk.
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