THE current beef price crisis was high on the agenda when members and officials of the Farmers' Union Wales met local politicians at the Pembrokeshire County Show.

Preseli Pembrokeshire MP - and Secretary of State for Wales - Stephen Crabb, West Carmarthen and South Pembrokeshire MP Simon Hart and Preseli Pembrokeshire AM Paul Davies also heard about the issues around labelling and packaging, impact of bovine TB on individual businesses, the new greening regulations under the CAP and the rollout of superfast broadband.

On the beef price, FUW members made clear that a drop of 64 pence a kilo between April 2013 and June 2014 was unsustainable and that the recently announced Russian import ban was likely to further exacerbate the problem.

FUW Pembrokeshire county chairman Hywel Vaughan said: “We urge the UK government to also look at the Irish and Polish imports which are currently flooding our market and the practices of the supermarkets as the price of British beef for the consumer has not fallen to reflect the current market price which we are receiving.

“The current beef price crisis coupled with the 15% loss of CAP monies is putting Welsh farmers at an unfair disadvantage.”

On the subject of labelling, members raised their concerns that it is still not easy for consumers to make a quick, informed decision about the origin of their meat when purchasing.

And there were also concerns that farmers who made genuine errors on their single application forms while changes take place would be hit unfairly.

FUW Pembrokeshire county executive officer Rebecca Voyle said: “We need the Welsh Government to make allowances for farmers making genuine errors in 2015 on forms and during the year as the introduction of the new scheme will see some significant changes the full details of which have yet to be provided to the industry.

“Further to this farmers are increasingly being expected to complete their paperwork online; for example application forms for the new Glastir Organic and Glastir Advanced schemes will only be available online. Whilst we are aware that Superfast broadband is being rolled out in Pembrokeshire there are still nine rural areas in the county without any or very poor broadband which have not yet been allocated a start date for installation, which is a concern.”