Farmers in North East Wales react to proposals for a new national park
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Wales is "committed" to new farming schemes despite warnings that the country's farms face a "disastrous" future, Express.co.uk has been told.
Welsh First Minister Vaughan Gething said he was "listening" to farmers and what they had to say about the new plans.
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However, farmers and those in the agricultural industry across the country say a number of rural policies are putting thousands of jobs and their way of life at risk.
Those in the sector recently descended on Cardiff to protest against the sustainable farming scheme (SFS), its post-Brexit funding plan.
Mr Gething said: "We're still committed to a sustainable farming scheme, and we're still listening to farmers and what others have had to say about the consolation."
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READ MORE Farmers like me will go out of business under Welsh Labour plan
Vaughan Gething is facing a raft of challenges barely a month into his time as First Minister (Image: GETTY)
He continued: "We've had about 11,000 responses, so it takes time to work through those. Because we're no longer a part of the EU, we need to have a new scheme designed for support, to support agriculture in the rural economy.
"We have to have this new scheme, and it has to be both about how we support sustainable food and drink production and navigate the climate crisis we're living through that farmers can see every day on the land they use."
There are many ideas contained within the SFS. One is that farmers should commit to ensuring that 10 percent of their land is under tree cover.
But farmers argue that this would be costly, impractical, see swathes of their land taken away from them, and fraught with paperwork.
While there is no sign that a UK-wide Labour government would implement a similar policy, English farmer Will Ashby told Express.co.uk it would be “madness” to take away vital land from food production on his East Sussex holding.
About 300 acres of the total area he works in the civil parish of Peasmarsh would be repurposed as natural habitat or woodland if Welsh Labour’s re-wilding policy was enforced in England.
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Farmers across Wales have voiced their outrage at the policies contained in the SFS (Image: GETTY)
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He said: "Food security is one of the most important priorities facing the UK and it is madness for a policy to insist on taking productive land away from this aim."
Last month, farmers from around Wales travelled to Cardiff to voice their outrage over the policies under the campaign slogan: "Enough is enough".
Before this, many had turned up at the offices of the former Welsh rural affairs minister, Lesley Griffiths, in Wrexham, north Wales, and smashed eggs on his doorstep.
Angry farmers later focused on rolling into hustings to find the new Welsh First Minister in March.
A report on the potential impact and fallout from the SFS doesn't paint the policy in a favourable light.
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Agricultural workers say the SFS threatens their business and way of life (Image: GETTY)
Should a 100 percent enrolment occur, some 10.8 percent of Welsh livestock would be slashed from the national output.
A further 11 percent cut in labour on Welsh farms, the equivalent of 5,500 jobs according to NFU Cymru, would take place, as would a loss of millions of pounds to the industry which some estimates put to the tune of ￡200million.
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For its part, the Welsh government says change is needed to ensure that farming practices transition to a sustainable model and protect both the industry in the long-term and the planet.
Some 10 percent of total UK greenhouse gas emissions are attributed to farming, while 47 percent of the UK's methane emissions come from the sector, much of which is driven by livestock farming.
While many farmers have already made the switch to more sustainable methods — such as biodiversity drives with ponds for wildlife and planting trees — authorities say the change isn't coming fast enough.
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