January 2026
Supporting our farmers
The Welsh Farming Sector employs around 50,000 people on our farms, with around 230,000 also employed across the entire food and drink supply chain. In addition to this for every £1 of public money invested into farming, £9 is delivered back to the Welsh economy. Farming output is valued at over £2.2 billion annually, and the Welsh food sector is worth £9.3 billion to Wales’ economy. For these reasons I believe Welsh and UK Governments need to do more to support the industry.
Towards the end of 2025, the Welsh Governments Sustainable Farming Scheme (SFS) was agreed. This will be the primary source of government support for Welsh farming starting in 2026. I support the views of the farming unions that the scheme needs to continue to evolve to ensure it can deliver for Welsh farming.
I believe the current government and any future government must give an ongoing commitment to maintain, as a minimum, the current 70:30 budget split between the universal and optional & collaborative layers.
The Welsh Government decision to not align with England in regard to bluetongue policy was a disastrous one, and one that costed the Mid Wales economy significantly. I have spoken widely to those involved in the sector and raised the issue several times in the Senedd.
Turning to the UK Government’s inheritance tax changes, 2025 closed with a sense of relief for many family farms across Wales, as the UK government announced a significant change to Agricultural Property Relief and Business Property Relief, raising the threshold from £1m to £2.5m. If this change had not happened, I believe this would have led to the breakup of family farms. Many families would have had to simply sell off parts of their farm, making the business less viable. The consequences of family farms dwindling away is that we will become more reliant on food supplied from outside the UK.
The Welsh Government also needs to do so much more to tackle the devastation that Bovine TB causes. I believe that a holistic approach to defeating the disease is required; working in partnership with farmers and vets to eradicate the reservoir of infection within herds, eliminate inter-herd transmission and the targeted removal of infected wildlife, who themselves suffer a painful death due to TB.
Another growing area of concern in recent years has been the increasing pressure on farming businesses from government regulation. The farming industry has been looking after our countryside for centuries, but the burden of further unnecessary regulation, and again a one-size-fits-all approach, is why I and Welsh Conservatives voted against The Water Resources (Control of Agricultural Pollution) (Wales) Regulations (NVZs).
The additional burden in Wales also makes farmers less competitive than farming businesses often just a few miles away over the border.
To support our farming businesses and rural communities, the UK Government must ensure trade deals protect Welsh farmers. The current and the next Welsh Governments must ensure there is a properly funded Welsh Farming Scheme with food security at its heart, commit to the eradication of Bovine TB, scrap the-all Wales nitrate vulnerable zones, (NVZ’s) and change public procurement rules to promote Welsh produce and protect the agricultural budget.
I am pleased that the farming sector has the support of the public, many of whom are not linked to the industry. This support needs to be maintained, and it is incumbent on both the farming sector and politicians like me who fully support the industry’s calls, to underline exactly why we need to back our farmers. We need policies that work for rural Wales, not just ones that sound good on paper in Cardiff Bay.