Farmers and agricultural unions are fighting to save a large farming estate owned by Powys council amid sell-off plans that tenants say will affect the rural Welsh-speaking community by taking away a crucial stepping stone for young farmers.
A total of 19 tenants living and working on 130 smallholdings, or about 15%, have been served with notices to quit since the local authority began sending eviction letters in February this year. The Guardian understands at least one was in arrears.
According to the Farmers’ Union of Wales (FUW) the Powys farms estate – the largest of its kind in Wales, and the fifth-largest in the UK – is important for young farmers and those new to the industry, who often initially can’t afford to buy their own land; only 3% of “head of holding” farmers are under the age of 35. The local authority has sold about 30 farms since 2011.
“I consider myself to be quite a resilient person but hearing that people were being given notices on their homes and on their farms where they run their business to leave in six weeks literally made me feel sick,” said one Powys council tenant farmer in their 30s, who asked not to be named as they were in negotiations over renewing their contract.
“It made me worry about our future, because there was no communication beforehand, no rationale for it, just these letters in the post. Some of the tenants here are young families trying to establish themselves and build a life; without them, the community would look very different. I think it’s very shortsighted of the council not to recognise that.”
Powys is a vast, mountainous and sparsely populated county. Data from the most recent UK census in 2021 found that, like the rest of Wales, its population is ageing rapidly, while the population of 15- to 64-year-olds has dropped by 5%.
The percentage of Welsh speakers in the county also fell from 18.6% in 2011 to 16.4% in 2021, the joint second-largest decline. Cymraeg is an integral part of the rural community’s heritage: 45% of agricultural workers speak Welsh as their first language, more than any other industry, according to Welsh government figures.
After outcry from farmers and unions, the council entered negotiations with several tenants who had been served notices, and a petition against the sales has been circulated widely.
In a meeting last month on the future of the county farms estate, councillors voted to pause the sales until November and formed an advisory group to look at the issue. The vote also scrapped a target set in 2018 to sell £10m in assets a year to help offset funding shortfalls, which many believed had fuelled the farm eviction notices.
In a statement, a Powys council spokesperson said that a “strategic rationalisation of its property estate” was under way to “ensure that assets are managed efficiently, sustainably and align with the evolving needs of our communities”.
All sales income would be reinvested into council services and projects, they added. However, the farming community remains deeply worried about the future.
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“These farms were set up after the first world war for returning soldiers, to give them work. As time has gone by, farms have got bigger, and smaller farms are not viable any more, so it’s impossible for newcomers to establish themselves without leasing or renting,” said Wyn Williams, the chair for Montgomeryshire in northern Powys for the FUW.
“Good tenants improve and maintain the houses and farms, and build up good businesses. Now leases can be as short as three or four years, when they used to be for a lifetime. You need to present a business plan to get these farms, it’s very competitive, and even then, now it seems like it could all get taken away in a letter through the door from the council,” he said.
“These tenants are in a very vulnerable position. Their whole lives could be uprooted.”
