JANUARY turned out to be a busy month and time has really flown by.

The Welsh Council saw the re-election of John Davies and Aled Jones as NFU Cymru president and deputy president respectively.

They will continue to lead a strong Wales team for the next two years. Congratulations to them and everyone else who is either new or staying on in their roles.

A little earlier in the month, Joe Mault and I got the opportunity to meet up with Llyr Jones, Will Evans and Siân Jones from the NFU Cymru Next Generation Group.

We had a very positive meeting and discussed several ideas that we might wish to adopt going forward.

Being involved in education, for me, involving the next generation is of paramount importance to agriculture, as it is to every industry.

The combination of youth and experience, which can lead to a diversity of ideas and opinions, can bring real strength whether it is in a small business or at a large corporation.

It can also sometimes lead to a bit of tension over who is right and who is not.

However, one would hope that having those discussions will at least make us think of alternative viewpoints.

The status quo cannot always prevail.

Later in the month, I had the honour of representing Clwyd at the NFU Council meeting in Stoneleigh.

This was my first meeting at the national council and it was interesting to hear the views from across the farming nation at this most interesting of times.

Amongst the many issues, the one thing everyone had in common, from livestock farmer to arable, was the continuous wet weather of recent months, which as well as causing issues on livestock farms, has been hitting arable farmers hard in terms of crop plantings, etc.

This, in turn, is likely to lead to potential price increases to the arable farmer's most faithful customer - the livestock farmer.

Water, as we know, is a much greater issue than the short term chaos either too much or too little of it can cause.

In Wales, we are naturally really concerned about possible regulation from a water quality point of view, whilst the bigger picture of global supply imbalances are starting to have a greater impact, with parts of the world experiencing scarcity and other parts having too much.

Going forward, this issue will need to remain on top of the agenda; with new and better strategies needed across the globe to make sure this most precious of resources can be used wisely and sustainably.

DEWI JONES

NFU Cymru Clwyd county chairman