From Planet 228
by Ffion Jones
Following our invitation to pool ideas for how to safeguard Welsh national interests after the Leave vote, Ffion Jones draws on her experience as a sheep farmer and film-maker to offer proposals for the future, arguing that if farmers are not part of the dialogue for how to adapt agriculture policy post-referendum, this could decimate whole cultures and landscapes.
I get into the white school mini-bus, a sense of dread in my heart; not sure what would await me back home. Would there be men in white overalls, spattered in blood from our flock of Welsh Mountain sheep? Would my father have taken a gun to his own head? At sixteen, in 2001, I feared for the future of our farm, as news-report after news-report showed smoking piles of animal carcasses as foot-and-mouth disease spread across the UK. Five miles on, and the bus stops. We get out by the track that leads home, cross a makeshift straw disinfection barrier, and walk the last half-mile to the house.
Ffion Jones’s family on their farm. All images © Ffion Jones
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