In what has been a tumultuous week for Welsh farming policy, Hybu Cig Cymru, the meat promotion body, has launched its new environmental roadmap, which it says is a blueprint for a lower agricultural footprint in Wales.

The meat body said it hopes that the roadmap will put farmers on a path towards greater sustainability. The roadmap, ‘A Sustainable Future,’ lists 32 action points designed to help livestock producers lower their carbon emissions and lessen the impact of their operations on the environment.

The measures Hybu Cig Cymru recommends include manipulating ruminant diets to lower emissions, using renewable energies such as anaerobic digestion to capture emissions and adopting management practices that increase on-farm biodiversity, as well as more efficient water, fertiliser and nutrients use and better soil management and carbon capture.

Meat processors are also targeted in the sustainability roadmap; they are encouraged to reduce waste and source their produce locally. The group stressed that it is because of the custodial efforts of livestock farmers that “Wales has such a diverse rural environment that is rich in wildlife, visitor-friendly and offers a network of protected areas that is carefully managed by responsible grazing,” and said it sought to preserve this for future generations.

Commenting on the launch of the document, Hybu Cic Cymru chairman Dai Davies explained that, due to the level of tradition in Welsh livestock farming, the sector’s environmental impact was comparatively small. He said, “[Welsh farming] has positively adapted to the demands for the new, sustainable way of life and it is already playing a proactive part in safeguarding the environment.”

The group is currently collecting and analysing data to calculate farm carbon footprints for different farm types across Wales, which it says will allow farmers to benchmark their own farms operations, although Mr Davies said the actual carbon footprint would be “very difficult to accurately quantify as measuring greenhouse gas emissions at farm level is far from an exact science,"

He continued, "[Hybu Cic Cymru] is collecting and analysing data to calculate farm carbon footprints to provide farmers with the most accurate tools available to offer accurate benchmarking, a snapshot assessment of greenhouse gas emissions and provide a set of reliable standards for sustainability."

Elsewhere, Welsh Agriculture Minister Alun Davies has been on a fact-finding visit to a beef and sheep farm in his own constituency, organised under the Farmers Union of Wales’ food initiative ‘Help Cut Food Miles … Buy The Welsh One,’ which promotes sustainability and localism.