As livestock farmer Huw Morgan sets to work on repairing a section of dry-stone walling, he reflects on why conservation and the environment are front and centre of the farming system he runs with his parents in rural Powys.
The tranquillity of this moment - when birdsong is the only sound and with trees, hedges and greenery deeply embedded in the view from his vantage point in the farmyard - is one he truly savours.
It augments his appreciation of the natural environment and how it can sit comfortably alongside commercial farming practices.
That gratitude was brought into sharp focus when Huw visited Abu Dhabi when his younger brother taught there.
“It is nice to see the wildlife, to be part of preserving the environment. We can farm and support wildlife at the same time, there is no reason whatsoever why not to.”
Huw Morgan
“Everything was desert and I got a bit homesick to be honest, craving grass and trees,” he remembers.
The home farm
Pwllyrhwyaid Farm, near Talybont-on-Usk, has been his home for all of his 49 years.
It is where his parents, Glasnant and Linda, now in their early seventies, first established beef and sheep enterprises and truly embraced environmental schemes.
It started with strategic tree planting, supported by the Brecon Beacons National Park Authority and then, for the next decade, Tir Gofal.
Environmental schemes
“Tir Gofal was a very good scheme, we had a project officer who was always available at the end of the phone or who would call out to the farm if there was a problem or we wanted to change something,” says Huw.
Glastir followed, a scheme which the Morgans initially failed to get into but an opportunity to join presented itself when another farmer dropped out.
“Glastir wasn’t as good as Tir Gofal but we were already growing swedes and wholecrop so it suited us at the time,” Huw recalls.
The business withdrew from that when the Small Grants scheme opened since farmers couldn’t claim from both.
“I had a lot of hedging I wanted to do so we made the most of funding for hedge laying and planting fruit trees from the Small Grants scheme,” says Huw.
The business is now signed up to the Habitat Wales Scheme too, but a question mark hangs over whether or not it will join the Sustainable Farming Scheme (SFS).
Huw says they probably will enrol because much of what it requires is what is already done on the farm, but it will depend if it is financially viable and how much bureaucracy and form-filling is involved.
'Bureaucracy doesn't feed people'
“When I came home to the farm to work what I wanted to do was to work outside to rear livestock and grow crops for people to eat, but more of my time is now given to filling forms - that’s not what I signed up to do. Bureaucracy doesn’t feed people.
“I know there will be less money available under the SFS than under previous schemes, you can pretty much guarantee that, so it is a ‘wait and see’ thing for us.”
It is important to point out, he says, that environmental schemes are not money makers for farmers, grants pay for the materials and there is no financial reflection of a farmer’s labour and time.
After years of environmental scheme membership, the requirements are second nature to the Morgans, but Huw worries that for others, whose membership of the SFS will be a first for them, the obligations will be less instinctive.
“We know how these things work but for people who don’t, the process could be a stumbling block, particularly for farmers who are my dad’s age because everything is online.
“The uptake might be lower because of the computer work and the hoops farmers have to jump through to claim the SFS, I think it will put a lot of people off.”
Beef and sheep enterprise
Lamb and beef are produced at Pwllyrhwyaid Farm, lamb from a flock of 700 Texel-cross Welsh and Suffolk-cross Welsh ewes and 200 replacement ewe lambs and a flock of Welsh ewes for breeding replacements.
The 27-cow suckler herd, mostly Limousin x Friesians sired to a Charolais bull, is much smaller than the 70-plus cows that formed the herd before a major bovine TB breakdown in 2006. Around 30 were culled at that time.
Progeny from the herd are sold as 12-14-month-old stores at Brecon market.
While the herd is smaller, Huw says he wouldn’t want to farm without cattle. “Cattle are a good tool for managing grassland.
“We alternate grazing by cattle and sheep on the fields and that reduces worm burden and the need for use of anthelmintics.”
Lambing is in two blocks, starting with the crossbred ewes in mid-January and followed by the Welsh ewes and yearlings in mid-March, all lambed indoors.
“We lamb indoors because it’s easier to catch the ewes if there is a problem,” says Huw.
“My parents are in their seventies so indoor lambing means that I can still involve them.”
It also allows the ground to be rested before ewes and lambs are turned out.
95% of lambs are sold at Talybont-on-Usk, a market just a five-minute drive from the farm.
Grazing system
Grazed grass forms an important part of the system, but very little synthetic fertiliser is applied.
“We put a little bit of nitrogen down in early spring, about 40 units an acre, just to show the grass the bag!” laughs Huw, who is chairman of Brecon Grassland Society.
“We used to apply about two arctic loads of fertiliser a year but last year it was six tonnes.”
This is in part because of a reduced stocking rate.
In Huw’s experience, herbal leys aren’t a good fit for sheep systems because their grazing is more selective than cattle, grazing right down to the herb root while ignoring the grass.
Clover is integrated into reseeds but a succession of very dry or wet springs has left Huw questioning when those new leys should be established.
“We have been growing swedes as winter feed and then reseeding a new ley in the spring and that hasn’t always worked because a lot of weeds come up. It is also challenging when we have weather like we had this spring, with no rain.
“Going forward we will try reseeding in the autumn when weeds have gone to head to reduce the weed problem and we should get rain then, too.”
The apple juice business
But this will clash with one of the busiest times on the farm, when apple juice production is in full swing.
Huw and his wife, Claire, bought the business from Huw’s uncle, who had run it for 17 years.
Juice is produced from a variety of apple trees for three months from the beginning of September. Cherry, plum, damson, greengage and mulberry trees have also been planted on the farm.
5,000 750ml bottles of Aber Valley Apple Juice are sold annually and 10,000 330ml bottles, all pasteurised and bottled on the farm to be sold locally to shops, garden centres, pubs, or directly from the farm. The juice is also distributed across Wales through Blas ar Fwyd.
Sales are good and there is potential to grow the volume of juice produced.
Renewables
This business generates an important diversified income stream, as does a 46kW hydro scheme installed in 2015.
That scheme was licenced for 10 years and the Morgans are currently in the process of renewing it for another 10 years.
“We are paid so much per kilowatt and that is index-linked so when the price of electricity goes up so does our tariff,’’ says Huw.
The next project is to plant conifers to grow timber as a retirement income and for the next generation – daughter, Lucy, who is 21 and who works in a 999-call handling centre, and 18-year-old Ellis, who is at Hartpury College training to be a tractor mechanic and also works for a local mechanic.
As well as her involvement in the apple juice business, Claire also teaches Welsh to adults.
For that next generation, ensuring that there is a future for nature on the farm as well as agriculture is important to Huw and Claire.
“It is nice to see the wildlife, to be part of preserving the environment. We can farm and support wildlife at the same time, there is no reason whatsoever why not to,” Huw insists.
