This is the AI response to a question about the income of Welsh farmers (and being AI it must be true, mustn't it?):
The average farm business income in Wales can fluctuate, but in 2022-23, GOV.WALES reported a decrease in average income for both cattle and sheep (LFA) farms and cattle and sheep (lowland) farms. Specifically, LFA farms saw a 37% decrease to £24,300 per farm, and lowland farms experienced a 30% decrease to £18,700 per farm. These decreases were attributed to a combination of factors including a decrease in farm output and an increase in costs.
Crow Multimedia picked up on this following a recent piece by the excellent Anna Hill on BBC Farming Today concerning the work of “classic” Thurd Sector “organisation”, Food Sense Wales. We don’t want to impute to Anna our own interpretation of the interview but the writer did imagine that there was a slight note of scepticism in her voice, and this got the journalistic juices flowing.
We should say before we start that “public health” provision is woefully underfunded and inadequate and we generally support public health initiatives, including those in respect of a healthy diet. But …
The Farming Today feature said that the taxpayer has divvied-up £2m a year until 2028, ostensibly for Welsh farmers. But where there is taxpayer loot there is always the Thurd Sector seeking to grab some, or all, of it. This public dosh is destined for Food Sense Wales and we suggest you take a look at its expensive website [link below *] replete with traditional Thurd Sector bollocks which seem to us to have very little to do with actual farming and everything to do with the Labour Senedd nanny-state:
Mission: “Co-creating a food system for Wales that’s good for people and the planet.”
Inevitably this involves many other Thurd Sector organisations getting their noses in the trough: “Developing a network of cross sector food partnerships.”
Farmers may spread plenty of sh*t of the land but this “charitable fund” has its own methods of excrement dissemination: “Piloting and scaling innovative approaches to inspire action.”
Public money is to be used on something that has not, hitherto, been difficult for the Welsh: “Telling Stories”.
The website is replete with reference to the environment and to, er, social justice - which seems to imply that this has been something lacking in Welsh agriculture until now (whatever it means anyway!) Thus Food Sense will be:
“Catalysing a revolution in local and sustainable procurement inspired by horticulture”.
Taxpayers’ money will set up a whole Thurd Sector network for:
“The transition of agroeconomical production and consumption in Wales to benefit the environment and society.”
All the Thurd Sector buzzwords and Thurdspeak are deployed as the website goes on, and on: “collaboration”, “inclusivity”, “agility”, “drive”, “removing barriers and stigma”.
This lefty tosh (and the Thurd Sector is 99% left-wing) mentions virtually nothing about the realities of Welsh farming - although Food Sense is desperate that this should be “organic” - and is very much in favour of the left-wing answer to everything related to business, the “Preston model”. In short, this is to force schools, hospitals etc to buy local (irrespective of price). This actually bears a close resemblance to Trumpian protectionism. We don’t know enough about Welsh agroeconomics to say whether there would even be a sufficient market for this to “work”, and how “sustainable” such a system would be. And such dirigiste systems didn’t work out too well under Comrades Stalin and Mao.
We were under the impression that Welsh farmers had been feeding the nation for hundreds of years and exporting beautiful lamb and much else to us English heathens, and others. We are not aware that local farmers and growers have starved children say, or the elderly (unlike our Red friends mentioned above) but Food Sense will use public money to ensure that:
“All ages have dignified access to healthy, good-quality food.” No more going down the Spar for a Ginsters for you, Welsh folk (wags an admonishing finger!)
Anna Hill rightly suggested that £2m a year was not a massive amount of money to implement these lofty aims but one Kate Palmer of Food Sense immediately pressed the Thurdspeak button, and talked of using the public money to “leverage” funds in from elsewhere. In other words, bring in other Thurd Sector friends to dip their proboscises into the honey pot.
And Anna is too good a presenter not to raise the obvious question whether Welsh farmers will actually see any of the money. Ms Palmer said that Food Sense had worked with 15 “growers” and worked to get Welsh veg in schools. It had invested money into “key infrastructure” and made grants for polytunnels and packing sheds. So far so good, but she also made the bizarre boast that Wales was doing a lot more along these lines than was being done “in England” as if funding Welsh agriculture is akin to a rugger match against the old enemy. If you are involved in actual Welsh farming we suggest you try and screw some loot out of this lot quickly, before all the cash disappears.
As above, we are not experts on agroeconomics but know that the system has been turned on its head thanks to Brexit. We sort of imagined that the Welsh Government [sic] would help out farmers (if it has not already blown all its revenues elsewhere), particularly when it comes to “key infrastructure” spending. And where is NFU Cymru in all this?
We took a look at the legal status of Food Sense Wales and it is opaque. On the website it says it is part of Cardiff and Vale Health Charity (1056544) and the (Cardiff) Public Health Team. Food Sense has told Crow Multimedia that it is just a “fund under the umbrella of the Cardiff and Vale Health Charity”. It is “hosted” by the Public Health team. The email address is a NHS one.
Let us just pause and look at the Charity of which Food Sense is a part. Cardiff and Vale is an official NHS charity via a 1990 Act of Parliament. Of course, many dedicated individuals give time and/or money to C&V and many good works are done. Like many charities it receives unrestricted income (general donations, legacies etc.) which is used for general charitable aims at the direction of the trustees, and restricted income which is for specific projects and often consists of grants. As things stand it appears that Welsh Labour has grabbed £2m a year from taxpayers and turned this into an enforced “donation” to the Charity - specifically for this nanny state “Eat The Greens” [surely Eat Your Greens - Ed?] project. This Charity claims to employ nine staff although it is not clear whether this includes the (at least) four staff working specifically for Food Sense (see further below).
The annual report for 2024 makes some interesting reading particularly in respect of the costs of the fundraising effort:
.png)
