Don't burden us even more!

Don't burden us with complex and unnecessary rules – that will be the message at today's Pembrokeshire Show from the Chairman of NFU Cymru's Combinable Crops and Horticulture working Group, Perkin Evans.

Mr Evans, who farms near Solfa, was responding to the recent decision by Defra to impose additional cross-compliance requirements on English farmers in response to placing set-aside at zero percent. He said, "I would appeal to Wales' Rural Affairs Minister, Elin Jones, to take a common sense approach to this issue and not pay any attention to what is happening across the border. With approximately 4,500 hectares of set-aside land in Wales compared to over 360,000 hectares in England, the Welsh situation is very different."

NFU Cymru has already written to the Minister for Rural Affairs to express their concern regarding this situation.

Mr Evans added, "We are pleased at the recent strong signals that have come out from the European Commission that the vast majority of Member States will agree to abolish set-aside as was proposed in the recent health check proposals. What we don't want, however, is a raft of additional cross compliance measures in an ill-conceived attempt to compensate for the loss of what is, after all, a small area of set-aside land. In our view such a move would hit Wales' farmers disproportionately hard and would be expensive to administer whilst delivering little, if any actual environmental benefit."

Mr Evans concluded, "When set-aside was introduced it was never intended as an environmental measure, but was intended as a means of controlling over-production. We have now entered an era of global food shortages and it makes little sense to prevent farmers from responding to clear market demand for their produce."