Introduction to Beacons Water Group
The Beacons Water Group is a group of farmers who have come together and set up a unique Community Interest Company from the Brecon Beacons. The Group work together to pilot new ways of working and innovative agricultural practices which provide benefits to farms and protect drinking water sources.
- Established under Welsh Water’s Brecon Beacons Mega Catchment initiative, Beacons Water Group is modelled on the internationally renowned Watershed Agricultural Council, New York State.
- The group is an outcome-focussed partnership between Welsh Water and the agricultural community which takes a bottom-up approach to influencing proactive farmland management.
- The activities of the group are recognised by key stakeholders as delivering best practice and are influencing policy ie. pilot projects undertaken by BWG have been incorporated into Welsh Government’s future Sustainable Farming Scheme proposal document and BWG have been included as a case study in Bannau Brycheiniog National Park Authority’s Sêr Y Bannau Management Plan.
Background
We understand how important farming is within our drinking water catchments and we want to work with farmers on sustainable land management practices which benefit both their businesses and our drinking water sources.
To do this we developed the Brecon Beacons Mega Catchment / Bannau Brycheiniog Mega Catchment (BBMC) programme, aiming to deliver catchment management at a landscape scale within this specific and strategically important geographical area. The Brecon Beacons/Bannau Brycheiniog supply almost half of the drinking water we provide to our customers every day, which is why we call it a Mega Catchment for water.
Within the BBMC initiative sits the Beacons Water Group, a cluster of proactive farmers that we have established a unique partnership with, in order to deliver mutually beneficial land management practices. This partnership is the first of its kind in Wales and together we are exploring how we can replicate our successes with other farm clusters across our drinking water catchments.
We believe that through a partnership approach which empowers farmers to work with us to find solutions and make decisions, we are more likely to make sustainable land use changes that will provide long-term benefits for both farming and the water environment.
History
The timeline of the group highlights key activities over the last 5 years.
Welsh Water facilitated a knowledge exchange event in 2018 with New York’s Department for Environmental Protection and the Watershed Agricultural Council (WAC), based in the Catskills Mountains. From this, farmers based in the Brecon Beacons/Bannau Brycheiniog came together and, with our support, established the Beacons Water Group. The aim was to pilot the approach of the WAC but adapted for a Welsh context.
Since their formation, this small group of engaged, proactive farmers have worked with us to pilot projects that benefit their businesses and protect the quality of our drinking water sources. These new ways of working could then be rolled out at a landscape scale.
The core
group
The core group of six farmers have been in place since 2019, and as of 2023, this has increased to seven members. The Group members were selected based on trust and respect of each other, qualities which were felt to be more important than geographical location or enterprise. Since its inception, the Group has been supported by our BBMC team.
Working in collaboration
Support for BWG is increasing amongst key organisations and stakeholders who see the partnership as pioneering a new way of working on farms to deliver multiple benefits for water and the wider environment:
- ‘Stars of the Beacons’: Bannau Brycheiniog National Park Authority is promoting the Group which embodies the collaborative approach and openness which the park is looking for in all its partners, and a leading example of progressive thinking.
- Hosting Regulatory groups: The BWG have twice presented to the Natural Resources Wales (NRW) Wales Land Management Forum (WLMF) and will be hosting WLMF on-farm in June 2023 to gain support for the role out of the approach across Wales.
- New Sustainable Farming Scheme: The Welsh Government consultation has an entire section promoting the activities of BWG - demonstrating simple and replicable solutions that benefit the farm and the environment.
There are many benefits for both us and our BWG farmers in this partnership. We see the BWG as proactive and part of a solution, while we are a trusted key partner. Our collaboration is in its infancy, yet key lessons are being learnt which provide excellent opportunities to take to other groups:
- Empowering farmers to come up with solutions leads to engagement and mind-set change.
- There is a genuine interest in ‘doing the right thing’ demonstrating that farmers are ‘part of the solution’.
- Skilled facilitation services are essential for the running of groups and acknowledgment that relationships take time to develop.
- Multiple small groups will achieve more than fewer larger groups – a key element to empowerment is a sense of belonging and self-worth.
- BWG is thinking outside the ‘usual’ community to become a pioneering, can-do group, helping to influence policy and also as the go-to organisation for constructive input into the challenges and opportunities faced by farmers in the Bannau Brycheiniog National Park area.
The BWG partnership is guiding our direction of travel for our catchment management approach in Wales, helping us to think differently on how we engage to deliver solutions that safeguard our drinking water sources and buffer against the impacts of climate change.
We will use this partnership as a stepping stone for engaging the wider farming community to improve the resilience of our water treatment works for the benefit of our customers while also supporting farming business.
We strongly believe that this partnership is successfully demonstrating how water companies and farmer groups can work together to co-create the solutions that will benefit the farming community and protect the environment.
