No plans to pause new farming subsidy scheme

There are no plans to pause the roll out of Wales' controversial new subsidy scheme for farmers, according to Wales' new rural affairs secretary.

The Welsh government's Sustainable Farming Scheme - set to be introduced from April 2025 - has sparked widespread protests in recent months.

Huw Irranca-Davies said "knotty issues" with the plans could be worked out and he was "seeing what other ideas were out there" with regards to farms needing 10% tree cover.

Thousands took to the steps of the Senedd to protest post-Brexit farming changes, concerns over tuberculosis (TB) and tougher agri-pollution regulations.

Mr Irranca-Davies was appointed cabinet secretary for climate change and rural affairs as part of Vaughan Gething's new ministerial team.

Farming leaders had called for a "reset" in relations with the government.

Mr Irranca-Davies said the first official meeting he and the new first minister had held was with the farming unions and claimed there was "agreement there on a lot of the framework and way forward".

He said calls to "pause, stop or kick the scheme into the long grass" would be "the worst thing we can do".

"What we've got to do is recognise the need for certainty for farmers and work in the next few weeks and months to put forward exactly where we are," he said.

He dismissed the idea the 10% tree-cover issue could become a problem for the Labour party during the upcoming general election campaign.

UK Labour's shadow farming minister Daniel Zeichner told the Farmers' Guardian newspaper in February "we're not going to be introducing anything similar to the Welsh system" in England.

Mr Irranca-Davies said the Welsh government had "often chosen to pioneer ways of working with our farming community on our landscapes and on our natural biodiversity".

On bovine TB, Mr Irranca-Davies signalled he had no plans to introduce a badger cull, as some farmers have called for.

He said farmers' concerns over stricter regulations to tackle agricultural pollution - often dubbed NVZs - had been listened to and the proposals adjusted.

But cleaning up Wales' rivers was an "absolute imperative".

"We'll keep working with them but my message to farmers - as with many of these major challenges we have - is that we have a shared interest in cleaning up the quality of our rivers.

"We've got to deliver the outcomes and we'll keep on talking about how we best do that," he said.

Like thousands of others, Garry Williams attended the protest in Cardiff.

A second-generation hill farmer in the Bannau Brycheiniog, also known as the Brecon Beacons, he said something big "has gone wrong" for farmers to protest.

"They don’t want to protest, they haven’t got time to protest" but there’s a huge sense of "frustration", he said.

He said on the three big issues facing farmers - the Sustainable Farming Ccheme, pollution regulations, and TB management - the Welsh government "isn’t listening".

But he said Mr Irranca-Davies was the "best man for the job" and his appointment was an "opportunity" to make a difference.

Gail Davies-Walsh, chief executive of Afonydd Cymru, which represents Wales' rivers trusts, said farmers needed "real clarity over the payments" they would receive under the new funding scheme but it also had to "protect the environment and improve biodiversity".