UP and down the country we are seeing new life wherever we look, writes FUW president Glyn Roberts.

It is a wonderful time of year - we know winter is slowly coming to an end (or at least we hope so) and things are getting greener, the days are extending and the sun feels that little bit warmer.

By the end of the week we will also officially return to British Summer Time.

Farmers are busy lambing and despite current market prices, input costs or weather conditions, animals need looking after.

But while it feels like we are coming to the end of the Covid crisis, the ongoing war in Ukraine provides yet another stark example of how volatile global food supply chains can be.

Whilst the restrictions imposed upon us during the pandemic are coming to an end, this crisis has taught us the importance of food security to all sectors of society.

Many will remember the empty supermarket shelves from just a few years ago and had some of the policies being mooted in England and Wales at the time been in place already, our vulnerability to food shortages in the face of such catastrophes would have been far greater.

The ongoing Russian War on Ukraine is a stark example of how global events can suddenly affect the costs of food production for our family farms in Wales and elsewhere.

With this in mind, we wrote to the Minister for Rural Affairs recently highlighting the impacts of the war and met with her where we stressed that the framework of the Welsh Agriculture Bill needs to be flexible enough to allow changes in response to global events such as this, and for food production to be considered as a public good given concerns over food security.

The reality is that increasing prices for feed, fuel and fertiliser is often passed down the food chain and stops at the farm gate.

It is inevitable that food prices are and will continue to increase as the year goes on.

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However, the FUW continues its call on the Welsh Government to lobby the UK Government to reduce VAT on fuel and fulfil its commitment to cut tariffs on imports of grain from the USA to substitute Ukrainian and Russian imports in an effort to ensure consistency of supplies and sustainable prices for the farmers of Wales.

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