2007 a ‘year of pain’ for farmers says Royal Welsh chairman
Welsh farmers would look back on the past year as one that had caused them much pain and financial loss, the chairman of the Council of the Royal Welsh Agricultural Society, Alun Evans, said at Builth Wells.
Sheep sales, a prime income source for rural Wales, had been hard hit and sheep farmers had incurred losses running into millions of pounds he said. One of Wales’ greatest exports was banned at the worst possible time for farmers and this was all due to the incompetence of a government establishment which had no sense of responsibility or shame for what had happened.
“If one of us had caused such havoc we would long ago have been prosecuted and forced to pay compensation. We cannot let the government off the hook on this. Our industry must be compensated,” he said.
Mr Evans told members of the Council at a meeting on the Royal Welsh showground that the RWAS was also concerned about the impact blue tongue disease would have on the future of agricultural shows and farming businesses. Would vaccination against the disease be available and what would it cost farmers?