A dairy farming family from Pontarddulais has highlighted the important role family farms play in keeping the rural economy alive, whilst producing nutritious food and looking after the environment.
Gareth Beynon Thomas, who farms Goitre Fach with his wife Monica and family, opened the gates to the home farm on the eve of the Welsh Dairy Show to the Farmers’ Union of Wales.
The family wanted to showcase how the business has progressed in recent years with a new milk vending machine venture.
After receiving a degree in Agriculture at Bangor University, Gareth returned to the farm in 1982, before marrying Monica in 1985 to form a partnership.
They have four children. Ifan, the youngest son, returned in 2014 to join his parents. By now the family farm some 700 acres, with 520 owned in a block within one mile of Goitre Fach.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, the family started to pasteurise and sell milk, milkshake and ice cream through a vending machine under the business name of 'Llaeth Beynon Dairy'.
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This side of the enterprise is run by Ifan, and by now employs two full time staff members and has three machines and a mobile trailer, with further two machines imminent to be located in Swansea city centre. He also supplies local coffee shops daily.
Speaking after the visit, FUW President Glyn Roberts said: “Family farms like Goitre Fach are a credit to our industry as a whole and the dairy industry.
“They make an immeasurable contribution to the local and rural economy, as well as providing nutritious and sustainable food.
“We have highlighted the fact that Family farms in particular are at the heart of our rural economy.
“Farms like these are caring for our landscape, and of course our culture and they make innumerable other contributions to the well-being of Wales and the UK.
“Welsh food production sustains tens of thousands of other businesses – from upstream businesses such as feed merchants, agricultural contractors and engineers, to downstream businesses such as hauliers, processors and retailers and it is evident that for every pound generated on farm, around six pounds is spent in the wider economy.”
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