Our small family farms deserve a better deal

THE latest triple-threat to the farming community in Wales comes, cruelly enough, after a period when things had begun to look a little brighter.

The 2001 foot- and-mouth outbreak was firmly in the past, and there was evidence of some improvement – albeit minor – in farm gate prices.

But the return of foot-and-mouth with the export bans and movement restrictions that come with it, has wiped out any signs of recovery.

And farmers will know, with weary resignation, that their troubles tend not to come alone; foot-and-mouth is accompanied by the threats from bluetongue disease and bovine TB.

Taken together they have had a catastrophic impact on autumn sales and on cash flow, pushing hard- pressed farmers further into the red and into dependence on the generosity of their bank managers.

Agriculture may not play such a central role in the UK economy as it did when foot-and-mouth struck in the 1960s, but in many parts of rural Wales it is still a major employer. It is not a sector that can be allowed to wither and die.