Last week saw the return of Europe’s largest agricultural show – the Royal Welsh Show. I’m sure you’ll all agree it was another fantastic event. Congratulations to this year’s feature county, Caernarfon, to the show President John Owen, as well as all the staff and volunteers who are involved in organising this spectacular show – there’s no doubt that a huge amount of work has gone into ensuring its smooth running.

The NFU Cymru/NFU Mutual stand was a constant hive of activity and thank you to those who came to support our well attended seminars. Our first seminar of the show was titled ‘Setting the Scene?’ with myself as chair joined by Wales’ First Minister Eluned Morgan MS. On Tuesday, we were joined by the Deputy First Minister Huw Irranca-Davies to a packed seminar where we had a robust question and answer session about the current Sustainable Farming Scheme.

Other topics of discussion throughout the week were, ‘The parties and their policies’, ‘Inheritance Tax - where are we now?’ and ‘Animal Health and Welfare priorities for Welsh farmers’. All seminars generated good discussion and allowed us to really look in-depth at the issues that matter most to the industry, including the Sustainable Farming Scheme, IHT and bovine TB. We also held a ceremony to celebrate the 40th anniversary of our Gareth Raw Rees Travel Memorial Scholarship and my congratulations go out to the six youngsters who won the scholarship. It was great to see such passion for our industry and we wish them all safe travels.

As well as seminars, we engaged with a huge number of politicians, stakeholders, retailer representatives and policy decision makers. It was great to meet with our core membership in person and this is the part that I really enjoyed, speaking to our grassroots members who inform our policy decisions and strategy when lobbying the government in Cardiff and Westminster. This is a vital part of our work at NFU Cymru and it was great to be able to meet with friends, old and new, and of course discuss the weather!

May I also congratulate Robbie Alman-Wilson of the Cnwch farm near Llanbister, who won our Wales Woman Farmer of the Year Award.

Congratulations must also go to Trecastle YFC who won the men’s Tug of War, Gwent YFC who won the women’s and Eryri YFC won the men’s Rugby 7s. NFU Cymru is extremely proud to support the next generation of farmers. Llongyfarchiadau to all those involved.