Editor,

NFU Cymru (Food production and the environment are not competitors, Cambrian News, 3 March) is missing the point – we all know the benefits of eating healthily raised chickens and eggs and the value of pasture-raised livestock. I have strong reservations about the Ceredigion intensive poultry units (IPU), not because of nimbyism, but because our farmers could do so much better if they were given the right signals.

Intensively raised indoor chickens have many environmental, social and economic disbenefits if you look at the bigger picture. For example, being part of the global system means importing feed from industrial agriculture that is so much more damaging than we may be aware of in Wales – cheap now perhaps, but we will all pay the price later.

The Welsh Government is failing farmers and consumers alike if it doesn’t help us all to transition to more resilient ways of living.

When the Welsh Government used to post the Gwlad magazine to farmers, I know it was avidly read, shared and discussed over a cuppa or a meal. There was almost always a feature about sustainable diversification with case studies featuring Welsh farmers and smallholders that were daring to do things differently.

Since everything has gone online, I’m not aware of an alternative that fills the same niche and reaches all farm holdings and beyond.Farmers need support and opportunities to learn about resilient and sustainable alternatives, especially in the face of increasing global challenges. This is one reason why the Land Workers Alliance is running a webinar on Small Scale Pastured Poultry Enterprises.

Our hard working and skilled farmers will be pivotal in combatting climate change - and that includes diversifying in ways that both reduces the risk and increases resilience for everybody.

In a world that is increasingly vulnerable to global shocks, putting all one’s eggs in the basket of further intensification — especially when this contributes to planetary dysfunction — surely cannot be the best way forward.

Dr Angie Polkey, Swyddffynnon