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It’s half-term in Wales and you could say we are in a period of calm before the storm.

Next week, it is anticipated that the Welsh farming community are preparing some form of protest in front of Y Senedd in Cardiff Bay.

Following two very well attended protests in Welshpool and Carmarthen, which brought thousands of farmers from different parts of Wales together, under a “Digon yw Digon – Enough is Enough” banner.

Taking advantage no doubt of the momentum built up recently on the continent of Europe which has seen several weeks of farming protests in countries like France, Poland, Switzerland, Holland, Germany, Portugal, Spain and Austria.

Farmers on the continent are furious with the EU’s net-zero policies and what seems like a concerted effort to substantially reduce the farming sector throughout Europe.

And here in Wales, there are similar concerns particularly concerning the Sustainable Farming Scheme which is being imposed on family farms.

Under this initiative, farmers are expected to set aside up to 20% of their own agricultural land – 10% to plant trees and 10% for habitat- which will not only mean a a loss of good agricultural land, but also a reduction in the amount of food produced in Wales.

And there is a raft of associated concerns around how farmers are being screwed by the Supermarkets on prices for their products, the lack of respect for the industry and how they are also drowning in a sea of bureaucracy right now.

Gwlad leader Gwyn Wigley Evans said it was clear that the Welsh Labour government wanted to make the agricultural sector in Wales unviable.

“The Tories killed off our mining industry, and Labour now want to kill off our farming sector” he said.

Mr. Evans added that the farmers had not been helped by their respective unions who had just taken the money and failed to stand up to the Welsh Government’s dictates.

“It doesn’t surprise me in the least that the farmers have decided to take things into their own hands now, and I really hope that the people of Wales will support them” he said.

“As the slogan goes, No farmers, No food, No Future” he added.

When it came to the decimation of the mining industry in the 1980s, at least there was a sense that this was being imposed from the outside by a Tory Government in London.

By people who didn’t know about Wales and had no care about Wales and her people.

But we are now facing a situation where it is our own Welsh Government – our own politicians – taking the axe to another foundational Welsh industry which is, arguably, even more important to Wales’s collective memory as a nation than even mining itself.

As ever with Welsh Labour, the communications on this are absolutely dire.

We know that they have absolutely no interest in rural Wales as there are no votes for them here, but even so you would have thought that they would try and construct an argument for Wales as a whole to explain why they believe these drastic policies are so essential.

And how, as they like to claim, they could actually benefit Wales and her people, both short-term and long-term.

But they have conveyed no clarity, no rationale, and no real vision.

All we can surmise is that they are simply implementing policies imposed on Wales from elsewhere. And that they are beholden to a wider Net Zero agenda which cares little for individuals and their communities.

As Wales braces itself for next week, it will be very interesting to consider the impact that a widespread protest could have here.

Wales is a very small country, but it has huge social capital in the sense of people’s connections to each other and to our communities. An effective protest here could have much more impact than a similar protest in a larger nation, and also drive change quicker than in those nations too.

When you factor in how social media can drive and amplify modern protesting right now – and the visual power of images showing tractors on the move – you really have a very potent mix lined up.

If Welsh Labour thought that things were calming down again after the 20mph debacle, you can’t but help sense that they are in for a very rude awakening next week.