Welsh Assembly’s dairy plan ‘lacks strategy’ to take industry forward
Within minutes of the launch of the Welsh Assembly’s new plan for the dairy industry, its authors were accused of “lacking new strategic thinking to take the industry forward”.
Dai Davies, NFU Cymru president, claimed they had had not heeded recommendations from his union and the assembly’s cross-party Environment, Planning and Countryside Committee.
While environmental and animal health issues were high on the agenda, sustainability and profitability did not appear on the radar, and the production cost crisis was not addressed.
The authors should wake up to reality and not to middle-class ideology, he added.
“I regret to say that this document ignores the big issues that beset the industry and concentrates on the peripheral,” Mr Davies told a Welsh Dairy Show press conference.
“I had hoped that the final document would at least commit to scrutinising the activities of the supply chain, seek to influence a competition framework that allows consolidation of milk processing business and create the regulatory conditions in which the dairy industry could be profitable.
“This document has been a very long time coming to fruition, but I fear that it is yet another that is merely going to gather dust.”
Earlier Elin Jones, Welsh rural affairs minister, told showgoers that the strategic action plan outlined how the dairy sector could rise to the challenges and opportunities it faced.
This meant meeting the needs of the market and capitalising on Wales’s unique features such as its climate, landscape and image of healthy food production.
She urged producers to use funding, advice and support available from the assembly to add value to their milk, work in partnership throughout the supply chain, protect the environment and ensure good animal health.
“I believe that this plan provides the dairy sector with the support it needs to thrive in the future,” Ms Jones claimed.
“It is for all those involved to drive success and achieve this plan’s vision of a sustainable, profitable, efficient and innovative Welsh dairy sector.”
She saw dairying as integral to the future of farming in Wales and was determined to do all she could to foster a vibrant and competitive industry supplying excellent products.
Her commitment to work with farmers to eradicate bovine TB would contribute to achieving the new plan’s objectives.
The Farmers Union of Wales described the plan as “a welcome first step” towards addressing dairy farmers’ problems. But it identified only some of the many steps that must be taken to put the industry back on the road to recovery at a time when it was threatened by rapidly rising costs.