Skip to main content

THE BETRAYAL OF RURAL NORTH WALES

As I did a review of the North Wales economy last week, I thought I would do the same for the state of agriculture in North Wales to complement the article from Saturday.

As someone who was brought up on the Llyn Peninsula, an area where farming is in the blood of every resident, it has constantly surprised me how politicians have, during the last few years, forgotten the significance of agriculture to the local economy.

Indeed, it would seem that North Wales has suffered as much as any other since Labour came to power in 1997:

According to official statistics:
  • the economic contribution of agriculture in North Wales has declined by 67 per cent during the period 1997-2007 as compared to an overall UK decline of 7 per cent
  • whilst agriculture accounted for 2.5 per cent of the North Wales economy in 1997, this had fallen to 0.6 per cent by 2007. Indeed, agriculture was producing £175 million for the North Wales economy in 1997 but this had plummeted to £57 million a decade later. Unbelievably, this decline accounts for 8 per cent of the total reduction in overall UK agricultural output during this period.
  • worst of all, if the relative contribution of agriculture to the North Wales economy had been the same in 2007 as it had been in 1997, then the sector would have been generating an additional £187 million in output that year.
Of course, such a massive drop in agricultural output has had a massive knock on effect on rural communities across the region resulting in depopulation, lower business activity and increased poverty.

Just imagine if an additional £187 million had been generated for the sector in North Wales in 2007. Most of that would have been circulated locally because of the nature of the industry.

Worst of all, many of those rural communities are the heart and soul of Welsh language and culture. Their decline economically will have a serious knock-on effect on a vital part of the soul of these villages and towns across rural North Wales.

It is a sad indictment of Welsh politicians at both Westminster and Cardiff Bay that this has been allowed to happen almost unnoticed over the last decade.

Is it because the Labour Party, until a week ago, had little or no interest in the farming industry? If so, then they should hang their heads in shame in allowing this industry, so vital to many rural communities across Wales, to decline so disastrously during this period.

Comments

Paul Williams said…
Hi Dylan

Prompted by your recent posts such as this one and others on the plight of Anglesey, I have set up a new blog to highlight the problems on the Island. The URL is: http://druidsrevenge.blogspot.com/

I would be very grateful if you could include my on your blogroll.

best regards
The Druid
January 11, 2010 1:06 pm
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

THE CRACHACH

Unlike me, do you consider yourself part of 'the establishment' here in Wales?  As thousands gather for the Eisteddfod in Mold this morning, they will, according to some social commentators, not be participating in the greatest cultural festivals of Europe. Instead, they will merely be bit-part players in one of the annual gatherings of the great and good of Wales.  Unkindly, this set of the movers and shakers in Welsh society is known as 'the crachach' , and constitute a social class all of their own, dominating the educational, cultural and media sectors of Wales and allegedly looking down upon any outsider with new ideas, reinforcing mediocrity and failing to see beyond the limits of their own narrow experience.  They are said to live in a comfort zone that awaits the expected invitation to the next glass of chilled chardonnay and canapés, forgetting that due to their lack of leadership and drive, Wales remains firmly rooted to the bottom of the UK prosperity league ...
30 comments
Read more

THE FUTURE FOR SILICON VALLEY

During the last twenty years, there have been many academics, politicians and policymakers (including yours truly) who have looked over to the innovation developed in Silicon Valley, California and wondered if we could ever emulate that success here in Wales. Whilst the former First Minister Rhodri Morgan proposed only last week that South Wales could become the “UK’s answer to Silicon Valley”, he is not alone in the world with such a suggestion for his local area. With imitation often being the sincerest form of flattery, many others regions across the globe have tried to emulate the ‘secret sauce’ that has led to this small valley to the South East of San Francisco becoming the seedbed for world-leading companies such as Hewlett-Packard, Apple and Google. But after fifty years of success, can it maintain its position as the premier location for innovation in the World? This is a question that its own business community has recently been asking itself. This has culminated in a...
Read more

Turn the Welsh Blogosphere Blue

It's not often I will criticise my party in public but we have really got to pull our finger out over our presence on the web, especially as it is estimated that we only have four active bloggers (and I am one of those!). This despite having a significant presence by individual Welsh conservatives on networking sites such as Facebook . It is disappointing that only Nick Bourne has a blog presence amongst our AMs and that Glyn Davies (who started his blog when down in Cardiff Bay) is the sole parliamentary candidate with an active blog. As far as I know, not one of our councillors is currently blogging. Many will say that they don't have the time to do this but we are all busy people and one of our hardest working shadow ministers, David Jones MP, makes the effort to blog nearly every day. Others will say that there is nothing to write about, so why do I get at least ten press releases every day from the Welsh party? Some have told me that it is a waste of time because the ...
19 comments
Read more