AG百家乐在线官网

"It keeps me awake at night."

"Farming is all he wants to do," Rhodri says, motioning to his young son who is happily plodding through puddles beside him.

"The feeling that you might be that generation that loses everything is not a good one."

THE SHEEP FARMER

"It's a perfect storm," Rhodri says, tramping across his farm in the Welsh mountains at daybreak on a crisp winter morning. The fear that he might lose this livelihood keeps him awake at night, he confesses.

While sheep clatter out the back of a cattle box into their new home, he clasps his son's hand and leads him across the grassy uplands that have been in their family for generations.

In Rhodri's case, subsidies make up 40% of his income. Before Brexit, the money came from the EU. Now, it's a devolved issue and from 2025, he'll have to dedicate 10% of his eligible farmland to trees and another 10% to natural habitat. For Rhodri, it's a loss he fears his business won't be able to sustain.

The small amount of land where he could plant trees is vital for feeding his flock; losing it could have a serious impact.

For Rhodri, it means either keeping fewer sheep, which would reduce his earnings, or buying in hay for the winter, which he fears could actually increase his carbon footprint.

It's not just subsidies Welsh farmers are angry about. Changes to rules on tackling bovine tuberculosis (TB) and the use of farming chemicals also sparked protests outside the Welsh parliament in Cardiff in February. 

THE PIG FARMER

Three hundred miles away in Kent, the so-called Garden of England, I'm standing in the mud with Jeff Gibson, a straight-talking pig farmer who took part in the London protest.

With pork production at a five-year low in Britain, Jeff has grave concerns for the future.

It's feeding time on the farm - as we chat he scatters food to hungry piglets.

"The British pork industry has been absolutely decimated in the last 10 years," Jeff says, as his pigs snort and snuffle in their pens. "European imports, heavily subsidised by their own governments, have flooded our markets and made pig production here pretty much impossible."

Jeff sells his pork exclusively in his own farm shop because he claims to be unable to make enough money to survive going through supermarkets.

Foreign meat can be found in all major UK supermarkets. Not just Danish bacon and sausages, but pork chops from Spain and chicken from Brazil and Poland, too.

While imports guarantee a solid supply chain, producing it abroad can be cheaper 鈥� and it's putting farmers out of business here.

"There's an unfairness in British agriculture," says Jeff, who thinks the government has thrown farmers "under the bus".

"The Brexit trade deals are absolutely atrocious," he adds.

The UK government insists deals like the one it signed with Australia and New Zealand contain safeguards to prevent British farmers from being undercut, but many fear the market is being flooded with goods that simply can't be produced as cheaply at home.

While trade deals and cheap imports are Jeff's main concerns, a few miles down the road, fruit farmer Tim has different worries.

THE FRUIT FARMER

The scale of Tim's farm is immense. A never-ending carpet of white plastic tunnels covers hundreds of hectares of land. He produces thousands of tonnes of strawberries for nearly every major UK supermarket. It's a massive operation that costs tens of millions of pounds.

For each harvest, Tim needs to bring in around 2,000 staff. Before Brexit, EU workers could stay as long as they wanted. Now, they have to leave after six months.

It's a source of deep frustration for Tim. After six months, he says, they've "just got good enough for me to make them an economically viable worker and then they have to go home".

As a result, Tim feels unable to compete with his European rivals. "They've put my hand behind my back and told me to fight someone with a gun. I can't negotiate fairly because the prices of the fruit coming in from abroad are not reflective of the same cost price we have."

Whether it's subsidies, imports, staff or costs; many farmers say they've had enough.

While this is about government policy, it's also about where our food comes from and whether we, the public, can afford to care.

When Sky News put the fears of farmers, such as Jeff and Tim, to the government, it responded with a statement saying that "British farming was at the heart of British trade".

"Agriculture is at the forefront of any deals we negotiate, prioritising new export opportunities, protecting UK food standards and removing market access barriers," said farming minister, Mark Spencer.

He went on to outline the ways in which the government supports the industry such as maintaining the "拢2.4bn annual farming budget" and setting out the "biggest ever package of grants to support farmers to produce food profitably and sustainably". 

Other initiatives include launching a consultation to make food labelling fairer to ensure "high-quality British produce" gets the "recognition" it deserves. And setting up a new fund to support farmers affected by flooding, which will offer grants of between 拢500 and 拢25,000 to those whose land suffered uninsurable damage earlier this year.

THE NEW GENERATION

Despite the gloom and frustrations, there are flickers of hope, with a new generation of farmers bringing ideas and innovation into the industry.

In Wiltshire, 25-year-old Josie Lewis has just taken over the family's dairy farm and proudly demonstrates the new computer system she has set up to monitor the milking performance of her cows.

While she hopes to still be farming in 20 years time, she acknowledges the difficulties it faces as a way of life.

"You have to love it," she says. "If you didn鈥檛 love it, why would you get up at 3am in Baltic conditions? You don't get paid very much, you might lose some animals to TB, or one might break its leg, and you just take yourself up and carry on."

So despite the challenges, Josie feels hopeful about the future.

"If you aren't hopeful, there's no point doing this鈥� the good times always outweigh the bad times."

CREDITS

Reporting: Dan Whitehead, West of England and Wales correspondent

Producers: Sophie Falcon and Christine Megson

Photography: Chris Pratt, Jordan Pettitt/PA

Editing: Serena KutchinAG百家乐在线官网, assistant editor

Production: Michael Drummond, specialist reporter

Design: Charlie Parish, designer