1. Will the Minister provide an update on how the Welsh Government is supporting farmers in the Cynon Valley? OAQ(5)0042(ERA)

Thank you. The rural development programme is the main mechanism for supporting Wales’s farmers, including smaller upland holdings and marginal farms, such as those in the Cynon Valley, through agri-environment and investment schemes where they are eligible and qualify. Support is also available through Glastir and Farming Connect.

Thank you, Cabinet Secretary. I recently met with a group of farmers in Ynysybwl, which is a marginal farmland area in my constituency, at a meeting organised by the National Farmers Union. We discussed the acidic quality of local soil, and it was suggested that liming of the soil in the area may benefit farmers, but would also bring environmental improvements. Would the Welsh Government consider building this idea into current and future farmer support schemes?

Thank you, and I’m very pleased you took up the farming union’s invitations to visit farms in your constituency. Welsh Government officials have regular and very productive engagement with farming stakeholders on Glastir, and that includes, obviously, the farming unions. European Commission rules require agri-environment support to pay for activities that exceed usual farming practice, so liming would really be part of usual farming practice. I think future support really is about primarily driving transformational change across the industry to become more sustainable, profitable, and resilient.

Cabinet Secretary, obviously, the rural development plan offers a level of support to agriculture, whether it be in the Cynon Valley or anywhere else in South Wales Central, or indeed Wales. The Government is committed to bringing a small grants scheme forward in this term. When do you think that small grants scheme might well be available to farmers to access, and what do you have in mind as being permissible under such a small grants scheme, when it is up and running?

Those discussions, you’ll appreciate, four months into this term of Government, are at very early stages, so I can’t give you a date when it will be available. I’ve started to have discussions with my Cabinet colleagues around this. I suppose early thinking is looking at perhaps small pieces of equipment, for instance, through capital grants, but, as I say, it is very early days.