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Diocesan Rural Life Advisor, The Reverend Victoria Ashley, appeals for prayer for the farming community. She writes:News of farmers demonstrating may sound like a group of militants just stamping their feet, but that really isn’t the case. The average income on Welsh farms is around £15,000/year - which means a number of those farms must be earning far less than that! Also, those incomes are likely to drop as the cost of production continues to increase. Few Welsh farms can now afford to employ staff, so farmers are regularly working a 60+ hour week, and for little financial reward.Agriculture as an industry is one of the most affected by the weather – great when it’s warm and dry, but devasting when crops are flooded, or livestock drowned or buried in snow. “Bovine TB is continuing to put an immense financial and mental health strain on farmers in Wales, with the cost of the disease to each farm business averaging more than £25,000 in the past 12 months alone.” (Farmers Weekly 17/08/23). Whilst most of the population have little trouble connecting to the internet and social media, farmers are often further isolated by poor or intermittent broadband and phone signals.Now try and sense the feeling of farmers as they hear of Welsh Government proposals which they believe are unworkable. In the main, farmers have always been ecologically minded and keen conservationists, they fully understand working with nature. So, in principle the Welsh Government's “Sustainable Farming Scheme (SFS) – Keeping Farmers Farming” might sound good. However, to be told that to gain any financial support from the scheme farmers will have to devote 10% of their land to trees, means that that 10% will no longer be part of their productive land or their income stream. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the National Food Reserve is already low, and it also suggests that the scheme may mean 5500 farm jobs losses – almost double the loss from the steel industry!Approximately 85% of this wonderful country of Wales is rural, and it’s kept beautiful by those who work the land, so please do pray that we ‘Keep Farmers Farming’. Thank you.PS. Anyone can fill in the response either by clicking this link Link to consultation form or other methods available at Welsh Government Website look for Keeping Farmers Farming