Farming: Cost of rural crime in Wales at its highest in more than a decade
The cost of rural crime in Wales is at its highest in more than a decade, a new report has revealed.
Last year, rural crime cost an estimated £2.8m in Wales, according to insurance provider NFU Mutual.
That’s an 18% increase on the previous year, with Wales the only UK nation to have seen a rise.
For farmers like Caryl Davies, that makes their work harder.
The 21-year-old farms on a beef and sheep farm in Pembrokeshire.
She told Sky News that having the quad bike stolen from her family farm last August had made them feel “really unsafe at home”.
Caryl Davies farms in North Pembrokeshire
The fact it happened in such a rural area was a “really big shock” for Ms Davies and her family.
“We’d rely on the bike day in day out, to look after our cows and sheep, and it’s had a really negative impact on us,” she said.
The cost of replacing a bike exactly like theirs would be “close to £10,000”.
“They’re a really expensive piece of kit, but you can’t be without them, especially in these rural areas where we’ve got the mountain and maybe places that aren’t very accessible,” she added.
“The bike is totally crucial for our day-to-day running of the farm.”
Caryl Davies
The incident was caught on camera in the calving shed, but the Davies family have since invested in an enhanced CCTV system. That comes at an additional cost.
“For some farmers, this is spare money that we haven’t really got,” Ms Davies added.
“Farming is hard enough as it is, without people stealing your things and having to spend this extra money on making your home farm safe.”
The total cost of rural crime across the UK has fallen since 2023 – down from £52.8m to £44.1m.
Quad bike and All Terrain Vehicles (ATVs) remained the top target for thieves during the past year, NFU Mutual’s figures show.
James Bourne farms in Pontypool, Torfaen, and claims to have had over 200 sheep stolen from common land adjoining his farm over a four-year period.
The 32-year-old told Sky News that losing sheep from his herd was a “big hit” on his business as well as the young family he is trying to support.
“The way agriculture is at the moment anyway, we’re struggling to make ends meet, and any profit that is in it is obviously being taken from me,” he said.
“So I really need to try and find out and get to the bottom of where they’re going because obviously it’s an ongoing issue.”
James Bourne
Andrew Chalk, from NFU Mutual, told Sky News that while there had been a “significant drop” across the UK, there were “worrying signs”.
“In Wales, especially, rural crime’s gone up which just shows that organised criminals are looking for ways to target the countryside again and again,” he said.
“What we’ve found increasingly is that organised criminals are targeting certain areas of the countryside, so they’re hitting multiple farms in one night.
“They’re raiding them, they’re moving away to another area and then hitting multiple farms there. So it is hugely concerning.”
Andrew Chalk
Mr Chalk said NFU Mutual had also heard reports of criminals using drones and other equipment to “look at the lay of the land”.
“What it does show is that organised criminals are always going to find new ways to target rural crime and that’s why we need to be on top of it and to work together to actually disrupt them,” he added.
Police forces in Wales say they are aware of the “significant impact” that rural crimes have on those affected.
A Dyfed-Powys Police spokesperson said the force had acquired new technology to help combat rural crime, including “advanced DNA asset-marking kits” and hopes to “empower farmers with effective tools and advice”.
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The spokesperson acknowledged the difficulty of patrolling the entire police force area, “given the huge area” it has to cover, and thanked rural communities for their “continuing vigilance and for reporting any suspicious activity”.
Temporary Chief Superintendent Jason White, from Gwent Police, said the force would be “increasing resources” within the rural crime team throughout this financial year and urged anyone in a rural area who believes they have been a victim of crime to get in touch.
It is a trade deal that will “rebalance, but enable trade on both sides,” said Ursula von der Leyen after the EU and US struck a trade deal in Scotland.
It was not the most emphatic declaration by the president of the European Commission.
The trading partnership between two of the biggest markets in the world is in significantly worse shape than it was before Donald Trump was elected, but this deal is better than nothing.
As part of the agreement, European exports to the US will be hit with a 15% tariff. That’s better than the 30% the bloc was threatened with but it is a world away from the type of open and free trade European leaders would like. The EU had offered tariff free trade to the US just weeks before the deal was announced.
Money latest: What new EU travel rules mean for you
Instead, it has accepted a 15% tariff and agreed to ramp up its energy purchases from the US.
The EU tariff on US imports will remain close to zero but Europe did get some important exemptions – on aviation, critical raw materials, some chemicals and some medical equipment. That being said, the bloc did not achieve a breakthrough on steel, aluminium or copper, which are still facing a 50% tariff. It means the average tariff on EU exports to the US will now rise from 1.2 % last year to 17%.
There is also confusion over the status of pharmaceuticals – an important industry to Europe. Products like Ozempic, which is made in Denmark, have flooded into the US market in recent years and Donald Trump was threatening tariffs as high as 50% on the sector.
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US and EU agree trade deal
It appears that pharmaceuticals will fall under the 15% bracket, even though President Trump contradicted official announcements by suggesting a deal had not yet been made on the industry. The risk is that the implementation of the deal could be beset with differences of interpretation, as has been the case with the Japan deal that Trump struck last week.
It also risks fracturing solidarity between EU states, all of which have different strategic industries that rely on the US to differing degrees. Germany’s BDI federation of industrial groups said: “Even a 15% tariff rate will have immense negative effects on export-oriented German industry.”
The VCI chemical trade association said rates were still “too high”. For German carmakers, including Mercedes and BMW, there was some reprieve from the crippling 27.5% tariff imposed by Trump. The industry is Europe’s top exporter to the US but the German trade body, the VDA, warned that a 15% rate would “cost the German automotive industry billions annually”.
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Who’s the winner in the US-EU trade deal?
Meanwhile, François Bayrou, the French Prime Minister, described the agreement as a “dark day” for the union, “when an alliance of free peoples, gathered to affirm their values and defend their interests, resolves to submission.”
While the deal has divided the bloc, the greater certainty it delivers is not to be snubbed at.
Markets bounced on the news, even though the deal will ultimately harm economic growth.
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‘Millions’ of EU jobs were in firing line
Analysts at Oxford Economics said: “We don’t plan material changes to our eurozone baseline forecast of 1.1% GDP growth this year and 0.8% in 2026 in response to the EU-US trade deal.
“While the effective tariff rate will end up at around 15%, a few percentage points higher than in our baseline, lower uncertainty and no EU retaliation are partial offsets.”
However, economists at Capital Economics said the economic outlook had now deteriorated, with growth in the bloc likely to drop by 0.2%. Germany and Ireland could be the hardest hit.
While the US appears to be the obvious winner in this negotiation, uncertainty still hangs over the US economy.
Trump has not achieved his goal of “90 deals in 90 days” and, in the end, American consumers could still bear the cost through higher prices.
That of course depends on how businesses share the burden of those higher costs, with the latest data suggesting that inflation is yet to rip through the US economy. While Europe determined on Sunday that a bad deal is better than no deal, some fear that the worst is yet to come for the Americans.
The United States and European Union have agreed a trade deal, says Donald Trump.
The announcement was made as the US president met European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen at one of his golf resorts in Scotland.
Speaking after talks in Turnberry, Mr Trump said the EU deal was the “biggest deal ever made” and it will be “great for cars”.
The US will impose 15% tariffs on EU goods into America, after Mr Trump had threatened a 30% levy.
He said there will be an EU investment of $600bn in the US, the bloc will buy $750bn in US energy and will also purchase US military equipment.
Mr Trump had earlier said the main sticking point was “fairness”, citing barriers to US exports of cars and agriculture.
He went into the talks demanding fairer trade with the 27-member EU and threatening steep tariffs to achieve that, while insisting the US will not go below 15% import taxes.
For months, Mr Trump has threatened most of the world with large tariffs in the hope of shrinking major US trade deficits with many key trading partners, including the EU.
Ms von der Leyen said the agreement would include 15% tariffs across the board, saying it would help rebalance trade between the two large trading partners.
In case there was no deal and the US had imposed 30% tariffs from 1 August, the EU has prepared counter-tariffs on €93bn (£81bn) of US goods.
Ahead of their meeting on Sunday, Ms von der Leyen described Mr Trump as a “tough negotiator and dealmaker”.
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