Protest-hit post-Brexit sustainable farming scheme goes live

Wales' controversial post-Brexit farm subsidy scheme came into force almost a decade after the vote to leave the EU.

This will ensure greener payments and allow farms to agree to a checklist of requirements.

Farms must actively manage at least 10% of their land as habitat to join, and while some have land that qualifies, many dairy farmers say they do not.

Farmers' union NFU Cymru warned the protest scheme still needed work but after a “huge rollercoaster” it was now “acceptable to the industry”.

Agriculture Secretary Hugh Irranca-Davies called it a “landmark moment for Wales” and said the first test would be how many farmers sign up.

New Year 2026 is “really important” for Welsh agriculture, said Abi Reader, deputy president of NFU Cymru, who owns a dairy farm in Wenvo, Vale of Glamorgan.

“This change in farm support payments is a once-in-a-generation change and there's a lot expected from it,” she said.

For decades, farms have received more than £300 million a year in EU subsidies, distributed largely based on how much land they have.

Rolling out the post-Brexit replacement plan, known as the Sustainable Farming Scheme (SFS), has been an “absolutely huge roller coaster”, Ms Reader said.

Unions branded earlier versions of the government's plans as “unworkable” and contributed to a wave of protests in 2024, including the largest ever seen outside the Senedd.

After further negotiations, the final details were determined. presented this summer.

Farms joining the GFS will be required to complete 12 so-called universal actions in exchange for entry-level payments.

These range from maintaining hedges and reducing pesticide use to taking online courses on sustainable farming methods.

Additional funding will be available for more ambitious environmental work and farm collaboration.

“I think we are generally happy with the structure now, but there are still a number of changes. [to be made] and we still need a budget that reflects inflation and actually benefits farms and rural areas,” Ms Reeder said.

Farmers now have until May 15 to prepare to apply for the new scheme.

Alternatively, they could stick with their old subsidies as they are phased out, but their payments will be cut by 40% this year.

Dairy farmer Gethin Hughes, from Ffostrasol in Ceredigion, said he had decided to join the SFS.

He said the payments would help provide “a little security” in the face of volatile milk prices.

He said although the scheme was now “much better” than before, opinions were still divided.

Farms must actively manage at least 10% of their land as habitat to join, and Mr Hughes said he was lucky to have some land that met the criteria.

But “a lot of my friends who are dairy farmers say they can't join because they don't have land to live on,” he said.

“They will have to reduce the number of cows, and then there will be no point in farming.”

Environmentalists say habitat land can still be grazed and used productively, and having more land helps make farms more resilient to extreme weather.

They are concerned that SFS may ultimately not be ambitious enough.

According to Arfon Williams from RSPB Cymru, the initial payment will only help farmers “maintain” the habitat and wildlife they already have.

Larger environmental benefits will come from additional funding sources known as the optional and shared tiers of the scheme, he argues.

“We need to develop these top levels of the scheme as quickly as possible,” he said, pointing to the Welsh Government's goal of halting biodiversity loss by 2030.

“Farmers have a huge role to play in restoring nature, but only if they have the tools and support to do the job,” he said.

Deputy First Minister Hugh Irranca-Davies said “making the SFS a reality” was a “significant achievement”.

After receiving a briefing on agricultural issues in March 2024 following major protests, he announced a further delay in the implementation of the scheme and organized roundtable groups involving farmers and environmentalists to work through the issues of disagreement.

“We have something that we have developed together, and it is also a dynamic scheme that we can adjust over time,” he said.

“That doesn't mean everyone is 100% happy – they're not – we never set out to achieve that.”

“But I think we have something we can be really proud of and I just want to encourage everyone as we go into the new year to go and take a good look at it now.”

The government had not set an “arbitrary target” for the number of farms it wanted to join the SFS in the first year, but the numbers would be one sign of success, he said.

Welsh Conservative Shadow Cabinet Secretary for Agriculture Samuel Kurtz M.S. said the SFS had failed to prioritize food production and food security and was “not fit for purpose”.

“Even in its revised form it is forecast to lead to job losses, reductions in livestock numbers and lower incomes for farming businesses across Wales,” he said.

The Tories have vowed to urgently review and replace the SFS with a “food security first” scheme, he said.

Plaid Cymru Agriculture Spokesperson Llyr Gruffydd M.S. stated that while SFS is now “much better” than the original proposal, “there is still a lot of work to be done.”

“We have already called for a more gradual transition to the new scheme, giving the sector more time to adapt,” he said, adding that a Plaid Cymru government would also “provide multi-year certainty for farming funding rather than Labour’s current twelve-month commitment.”

A Reform UK spokesman in Wales said the SFS “does not have the confidence of farmers and is determined to deal a crippling blow to the rural economy”.

“The SFS needs to be changed so that it is centered on food production and farmers rather than green targets,” they said.

Welsh Lib Dem leader Jane Dodds MS. said the SFS had provided “some much-needed short-term assurance” to farmers “under constant pressure from all sides”.

But it was “not a scheme that the Welsh Lib Dems could produce” and farmers needed “long-term solutions”.

Wales Green Party leader Anthony Slaughter said the government “needs to do much more to properly support farmers and make the changes our country and planet need.”

“The government and the public are asking for a lot, so it can't be done cheaply. The scale of the transition means the scale of funding needs to match – I'm not sure we haven't seen that commitment yet.”