FUW Compliments computer help shemes for more Farmers

Welsh Assembly Government (WAG) plans to reach even more farming families under its Managing Farms with IT (MFIT) and Agrisgôp programmes were welcomed by the Farmers' Union of Wales today.

Farmers are referred to the programmes through WAG's Farming Connect service which will launch a second phase this summer under the new Rural Development Plan for Wales 2007-13. "We are very hopeful that the MFIT and Agrisgôp programmes will continue under the same guise as in the past," said FUW IT coordinator Wyn Lewis, a member of the MFIT steering committee since its formation seven years ago.

"The ability to use IT is absolutely essential for farmers in this day and age when more and more demands are being made on the industry to keep computerised records," said Mr Lewis.

"Meanwhile, I would like to pay a huge compliment to the work of Peter Bowen, who has managed both the MFIT and Agrisgôp programmes since their inception, together with his staff and team of facilitators."

Mr Lewis was speaking after a WAG evaluation report concluded the MFIT and Agrisgôp programmes had made a positive impact on the agricultural industry.

The MFIT programme, funded by WAG with European Social Fund support, delivers a wide range of free computer training courses to Welsh farmers while Agrisgôp is an innovative management development programme. Together the programmes have helped more than 5,000 farmers since their launch in 2001 and 2002 respectively.

The programmes were launched to make farmers aware of how important it is to use computers in their businesses and to improve decision making by farm owners and managers.

The evaluation report says the programmes have given many farmers the confidence to develop and apply new skills on the farm to promote better business performance, to develop viable businesses and to achieve other goals.

Benefits have included time saving, reduced costs, greater employability, better margins and business diversification. The report speculated that if only 100 of the participating farmers had diversified into new businesses, which were each generating £10,000 a year, the annual benefits would be £1m.