FIW0004
Written evidence submitted by Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust
GWCT response to the Welsh Affairs select committee inquiry into Farming in Wales in 2025: Challenges and Opportunities
The Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT) Wales[1] is dedicated to ensuring the long-term conservation of wildlife and the sustainable management of our countryside. We are a leading charity that focuses on protecting and enhancing the biodiversity of the natural environment across Wales. By blending scientific research with practical conservation efforts, we strive to safeguard the future of our wildlife for generations to come.
We use our research to provide training and advice and promote our work to conservationists, including farmers and landowners so that the countryside and its wildlife is enhanced for the public benefit.
The GWCT actively supports farmers through initiatives like the Farmer Cluster movement, the Allerton Project, and by advocating for policies that benefit both farming and the environment, often in collaboration with government and other organizations.
1. Within the scope of its reserved responsibilities, what support is the UK Government providing to the Welsh farming sector and what support from the UK Government does the sector require?
Without Government support mainly through Basic Payments most farms in Wales will not be viable. Many are delivering environmental public goods for which they receive payments through a number of environmental focused schemes. If these payments were to stop the famers would have to seek income through a different means and this is likely to come in the form of intensification and at the expense of nature. As is often said farmers “can’t be green if they are in the red”.
Farmers are best placed to assist Government to deliver nature and other environmental targets. This will not be possible without financial payments for delivering these public benefit outcomes.
There is a danger that reduction in support payments will force farmers back to a production-first model, not one focussed on integrating farming with biodiversity recovery. Farmers are not expecting free handouts, they are able and willing to play a central role in restoring nature for fair reward and it’s critical that Government keeps them on board for the benefit of all.
As we see in England the take up of the SFI scheme which helped farmers deliver public goods including food security, nature recovery and climate change mitigation was higher than ever before and showed the potential to make a real impact on reversing biodiversity decline and be a world leading example of government funding farmers to deliver public goods. The problem there seems to have been over-subscription resulting in the suspension of the scheme which is particularly damaging causing loss of confidence and uncertainty at a time when BPS payments have all but disappeared, farm input costs are up, crop prices lacklustre and yields are down, driven by extremely challenging weather.
The farmers who had signed up to the Countryside Stewardship scheme, which pre-dated the SFI, whose agreements expired at the end of 2025 have no new scheme to apply to and that means the land, which is currently delivering funded environmental benefits, will no longer be funded and will likely be intensified as the only means of earning income from it.
These are the forward-thinking farmers who embraced doing environmental work long before the withdrawal of BPS and the SFI “Public money for public goods” approach.
At the end of the day both farmers and nature need funding and certainty, and society wants and needs both.
2. What is the potential impact of the UK Government’s proposed inheritance tax reforms on farms in Wales?
The Welsh Farm Business Survey has calculated that the average Welsh farm profit, other than within the dairy sector (which is higher), is just over £20,000 per annum even with current Government financial support. There is no capacity for farmers to pay for inheritance tax charges and therefore land would need to be sold which could potentially make the farms unviable.
Companies and individuals who have no connection with the local areas have been buying up farms in Wales on which to plant trees. This will have the effect of decimating local communities, language and culture. Bodies purchasing farms for mere financial gain without any generational links to an area will result in outcomes delivered being completely dependent on market forces with no consideration for future generations and the surrounding environment. As we saw with tree planting tax reliefs in the 70’s this has a negative effect.
GWCT Wales
April 2025