Last week saw the return of Europe’s largest agricultural shows – the Royal Welsh Show.

I’m sure you’ll all agree it was another fantastic event and the sun made an appearance. Congratulations to this year’s feature county, Ceredigion, to the show President Denley Jenkins, as well as all the staff and volunteers who are involved in organising this spectacular show – there’s no doubt that a huge amount of work has gone into ensuring its smooth running.

The NFU Cymru/NFU Mutual stand was a constant hive of activity and thank you to those who came to support our well attended seminars. Our first seminar of the show was titled ‘Setting the Scene?’. I chaired the seminar, Wales’ First Minister The Rt Hon Vaughan Gething MS and Tom Bradshaw, NFU President featured as panellists. On Tuesday, we welcomed the Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs Huw Irranca Davies to a packed seminar where we had a robust question and answer session about where we are with the current Sustainable Farming Scheme. 

Other topics of discussion throughout the week were, ‘Is regulation holding back Welsh farming’, ‘Sustainable Farming Scheme - Where are we now?’, and ‘Sustainable Welsh Food Production’. All seminars generated good discussion and allowed us to really look in-depth at the issues that matter most to the industry, including the Sustainable Farming Scheme, water quality and bovine TB. We also held a ceremony to celebrate the 25th anniversary of our Wales Woman Farmer of the Year Award and my congratulations go out to Meinir Howells of Shadog Farm near Llandysul who won this year’s award.

As well as seminars, we engaged with a huge number of politicians, stakeholders, retailer representatives and policy decision makers. It was great to meet with our core membership in person and this is the part that I really enjoyed, speaking to our grassroots members are who inform our policy decisions and strategy when lobbying the government in Cardiff and Westminster. This is a vital part of our work at NFU Cymru and it was great to be able to meet with friends, old and new, and of course discuss the weather!

May I also congratulate the eight youngsters who won the Gareth Raw Rees Travel Scholarship during the show. It was great to see such passion for our industry and do wish them all safe travels.

Congratulations must also go to Trecastle YFC who won the male, female and junior competitions of the Tug of War and to Gwernyfed who won the ladies rugby 7s and Carmarthenshire YFC who won the mens. Sponsoring these events are vitally important to the next generation of farmers and something NFU Cymru is extremely proud to be involved with. Llongyfarchiadau to all those involved.

Finally, a thanks to everyone who took the time to sign the Secure the Future of Welsh Food/Diogelu Dyfodol Bwyd Cymru pledge. It really is great to hear we have the backing of so many of the public. There is still time to sign so please visit the NFU Cymru website.