FARMERS are continuing to pay a high price for the outlawing of chemicals traditionally used to preserve timber fencing posts.

Chromated copper arsenate (CCA) preservatives were banned by the European Union in 2004 on health grounds and fencing post suppliers have since struggled to find effective alternatives.

The more environmentally friendly products now in use need wood to be prepared carefully before treatment. Although nearly a decade has passed since the CCA ban, none of the alternatives match their effectiveness, according to Wales-based post manufacturer, Gary Price.

Mr Price is also a sheep producer and says reliable fencing is a necessity on systems like his.

“We use a new tanalising process to enhance the longevity of the posts we manufacture, but we regularly speak to farmers who have used stakes that aren’t treated in this way and they rot off at ground level within five years,” said Mr Price, who farms near Llandrindod Wells.

“Perfectly good fences have to be scrapped.”

The problem has been described as “costly and timeconsuming”

by The Farmers’ Union of Wales (FUW).

One company – Postsaver Europe Ltd – is tackling the issue head-on with a sleeve designed to protect the most vulnerable part of a fence post from rotting organisms. The sleeve heat shrinks on to the ground line section of a fence post to seal the surface and is a barrier against micro-organisms.

Brothers Richard and Jim George designed the double layer polythene and bituminous sleeve in direct response to the new legislation on preservatives.

At a recent meeting of the Brecon and Radnor branch of the FUW, farmers were told that the sleeves add around 90p to the cost of a standard fencing stake and £2 for a standard fencing post.