UNDER normal circumstances we would all have been at the Royal Welsh show this week, enjoying the hustle and bustle of the showground, welcoming thousands to our pavilion, sharing thoughts over cups of tea and catching up with old friends.

Again this year it was not to be due to on-going Covid-19 restrictions, but nonetheless the Union put on a full programme of virtual events in the form of webinars, which you can view on the Royal Welsh events page, and members can also access them through the members portal on the FUW website.

Those virtual events cover many topics - rural housing, climate change, mental health, the future of digital connectivity for Wales and farm safety - and in addition to the webinars, the Union also launched a lobbying tool through the website, allowing members and the public to write to their elected representatives highlighting their grave concerns about the Free Trade Deal with Australia.

We can’t stress enough how important it is for everyone to directly voice their concerns with their local elected representatives on the Australia trade deal. There is no shortage of examples of significant differences between Welsh and Australian standards, including lower Australian animal welfare standards in terms of transporting and rearing animals, lower Australian animal traceability standards and lower Australian environmental standards, many of which have been cited by environmental and animal welfare charities and groups who oppose the trade deal.

Such differences in standards mean that Australian farms have significantly lower production costs at a time when the Welsh and UK Governments are placing or planning to place additional costly restrictions on our own farmers.

Let’s also bear in mind that the UK Government’s own figures estimate the economic benefits to the UK of such a deal to be between 0.01% and 0.02% of GDP over fifteen years - an average of just 0.001% of UK GDP a year - and that UK exports to Australia will increase by just 7.3% compared with increases of imports from Australia of 83.2%.

It is clear that while the economic benefits of the proposed deal are close to zero for the UK as a whole, they are likely to be severe for Wales’ farming communities and the industries that rely on them, while also undermining our food security, and global animal health and welfare and environmental standards - not to mention our food security.

Such adverse impacts would of course be exacerbated by further trade deals with other major agricultural producing nations - deals for which the Australia deal will set a precedent.

So on a final note this week, I urge you to use the lobbying tool on our website to highlight this to your local elected representatives as a matter of urgency. Our family farms depend on your support.

Glyn Roberts

FUW President