Farmers in Montgomeryshire are Grateful for Plaid's Leadership

Plaid Cymru in Montgomeryshire joins the FUW and NFU in welcoming the extension of the Tir Mynydd scheme thanks to the efforts of Plaid's Elin Jones AM.

Because of an impasse in the Agriculture Committee Plaid's Elin Jones was the first AM ever allowed to offer an alternative budget to ministers for a vote in the Assembly. This agri-environment scheme is very important both to farmers and to recreational users of the countryside and it is unthinkable that the Labour Assembly Government should have considered scrapping it altogether especially when figures for 2006 show a fall in income of 36% for hill livestock farms and 42% for upland enterprises.

Although only about 11% of the working population is directly involved in agriculture in Montgomeryshire many more have an indirect relationship with it and the cuts proposed by Labour (including an irreversible 33% reduction in 2007) would have had severe and long-term effects on the viability of many hill farms in Montgomeryshire.