By Debbie James

A livestock farmer who runs his sheep and cattle enterprise according to the rules dictated by an agri-environment agreement suggests the “inflexibility’’ of those regulations is damaging to the countryside and businesses like his.

Hefin farms with his parents, Ken and Elen, and wife, Catrin, near Betws-y-Coed, producing breeding bulls and females from a pedigree Limousin suckler herd and lamb from a flock of Welsh mountain ewes.

Although Glastir is important to the financial wellbeing of the business, Hefin suggests the rules are too rigid, curtailing the ability of farms to enhance results. This has become more of an issue as weather conditions become increasingly unpredictable, he says.

A case in point is a requirement to graze cattle in certain parts of the farm for a specified time period.

“The cattle do excellent management work for the habitat but conditions have been very wet this summer and autumn and the cattle are making a mess but our agreement states that we must have 14 cattle on that part of the farm, whatever the weather,’’ Hefin explains.

“There are no field officers that we can contact to explain our individual situation, as far as agreements like ours are concerned it has to be black and white.

“Flexibility would mean that we could work with weather conditions and protect the land when needed. There is a need to support cattle grazing more than ever on habitat and uplands of Wales.’’

Hefin, the third generation of his family to farm at 82-acre Bryn Ddraenen, a National Trust farm on the Ysbyty Ifan estate, says past environment schemes cut down too much on sheep grazing.

“The mountain is in a worse state than it was before we had environmental schemes because there are just not enough animals grazing it.

“To have the mountain rest for two or three months is good but grazing regenerates vegetation. Even the environmental groups I have spoken to recently are realising that there is not enough grazing on the hills.’’

Hefin says there are opportunities for farming and environment to work hand in hand but believes farmers must be at centre of any environment scheme for their farms.

Glastir, he believes, is the best of all the environmental schemes. “We have been able to establish a lot of stone walls and hedges, the scheme just needs to be more flexible.’’