Part of 1. 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:55 pm on 24 October 2017.
Well, this is something that is under consideration with the industry at the moment. The first thing I’d like to emphasise is that the same amount of money should be available in future as is currently available. What we’ve told the UK Government is that the funding should be ring-fenced and that nothing should affect that without an agreement between all the Governments. Having said that, there is now an opportunity to consider in which way we can use that funding for the benefit of Welsh farmers—to look at alternate ways of working, perhaps—and that is one thing that we can consider.
I remember, 17 years ago, when I was a member of the Assembly’s agriculture committee, a review was undertaken at that time on diversification, and what came right at the top of the list, as regards the greatest strength in the sector ultimately was the cultivation of organic vegetables. So, this is something that has been around for some time, but, of course, the subsidy payment scheme wasn’t flexible enough in order to ensure that we could use that funding in the way in which we would wish to use it. There is an opportunity, in the future, to ensure that that happens.