Up-hill funding struggle (From Western Telegraph)

Up-hill funding struggle

Upland farmers in Pembrokeshire are facing uneasy times ahead, as the Welsh Assembly plans to abolish or slash the Tir Mynydd subsidy payments to hill and upland holdings.

Designated as Less Favoured Areas (LFAs), upland farms have been subsidised - through Tir Mynydd and its predecessors - since the Second World War, to mitigate the handicaps in terms of terrain, altitude, soil-type, slope and climate. LFAs account for 80% of the land mass of Wales.

The two future options currently under consultation by the Assembly are to abolish the scheme completely from next year or to continue with it with a reduced budget of £24million and £22million respectively for 2007/2008.

Neither of these two options is acceptable to the leading Welsh farming unions.

NFU Cymru says the first option would effectively mean the withdrawal of around £36million from the Welsh LFA pot and although the consultation paper implies the introduction of Tir Cynnal would compensate for the loss of Tir Mynydd, NFU Cymru refutes this as Tir Cynnal payments would not equate to the contribution that Tir Mynydd currently makes to the income of many full-time hill and upland holdings.

The second option, according to the union, would see LFA support declining to £24million in 2007 (a drop of 33%) and to £22million in 2008 (a fall of some 39% on current levels of support).

The FUW is also fighting the cuts. President Gareth Vaughan, believes the proposals would have a knock-on detrimental effect on the rural economy in general. He describes it as a body blow for farmers in those areas.

"Welsh agriculture is already suffering from a serious cashflow crisis and any further reduction in farm incomes is totally unacceptable," he said.

The unions argue scrapping Tir Mynydd will also have a negative impact on the Welsh language, tourism, landscape and the environment.

Pembrokeshire and Carmarthenshire farmers were among a contingent of farmers who attended a rally earlier this month at the new Assembly building in Cardiff to register their opposition to the proposals.