A DINGESTOW farmer has been royally recognised for his work and commitment to farming and the community in Monmouthshire.

Lyndon Edwards of Lower Llantrothy Farm, Dingestow, was awarded the MBE after spending years defending the plight of the small family farmers.

A third generation farmer himself, he has been encouraging the work of farmers, young and old, ever since he helped his father in stewarding at Monmouthshire Show in 1956.

He has been involved with the show committee for the past 30 years, serving as chief sheep steward for the past 20 years and as chairman in 2012. His is also well known through his very long association with the NFU Cymru where he was a past Monmouth branch chairman, he was chairman of the Welsh Livestock board between 2013-15 and is now Monmouthshire delegate on that board.

Lyndon runs a 120 acre farm with the help of his wife, Liz and for the past 20 years has acted as a fieldsman, procuring livestock for the ABP food group, visiting farmers to see how they can best ready their stock for the finished market.

“I go onto farms, select the livestock and will point people to the level of finish that’s required for the market.”

A former Usk Young Farmer who excelled at stock judging, he still returns to coach the next generation of farmers at Usk College and many young farmer clubs, sharing his skills with those starting out on a similar path.

He even met his wife through a young farmers event.

They grow barley which is milled and mixed with minerals on the farm and feeds it with red clover silage to the 60 to 70 Angus cattle they keep during winter. The younger animals get soya added to the mix for extra protein.

In the summer they keep over 100 cattle and 1,000 lambs although in 2018 they finished over 1,350 store lambs. Lyndon explained: “In 2001, I was itching to grow red clover because I remember my father cutting a field of red clover and then a few weeks later having to cut it again.

“I was thinking that we have to cut our costs, grass growing is an expensive hobby and to get 219 big bales off just 12 acres with three cuts after only one light sprinkling of nitrogen in the spring just shows red clover is one of the best and cheapest foods I can grow on the farm for livestock”.

He seriously believes that the Welsh Government will bring about an end to the traditional family farm prevalent in Monmouthshire. He said: “The ‘Brexit on our land’ consultation was in the pipeline long before the referendum, we knew this would be the last period of time when we would have a Single Farm Payment (SFP). But the Welsh Assembly’s plans for the consultation will make the viability of small family livestock farms in Wales totally unsustainable because they are reducing the ability for farmers to farm and produce food by taking away that basic payment we all rely on.

“This is the wrong time to take away that payment. If we could get a decent return from the market place then we could manage, but at the moment, 80 to 90 per cent of farms need that payment”.

Lower Llantrothy has been in the family since 1923, his son Matthew currently farms in Ledbury, but Lyndon fears he could be the last in the line of small farming families - typical of Monmouthshire - left on the land.