10. Plaid Cymru debate: Young people and communities in Wales

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:54 pm on 14 March 2018.

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Photo of Lee Waters Lee Waters Labour 4:54, 14 March 2018

Excellent. Well, you often say things I disagree with; that's the nature of debate. Let me just make my point and then we can discuss it.

For example, I think one of the things we should be seizing on for our rural communities is not simply giving grants of £40,000—rather unfocused—to young farmers to set up businesses, but to focus that funding on what we know are going to be the industries and challenges of the future. I speak particularly of precision agriculture, which this National Assembly has already agreed we should develop a national strategy for, and the Welsh Government is yet to do anything about it. 

I think that precision agriculture not only has the ability to allow our farmers to become much more productive; it also, excitingly, has the ability to create industries in rural Wales where we service this technology, where we create the software, where we maintain the machinery, and where we build new global industries that are particularly calibrated to the type of rural conditions we have in Wales that exist in other parts of the world. That's where, I think, the focus should be, not in the same old thinking, but in looking at how we can look at new developments.

We've discussed before in this Chamber the remarkable results that have been achieved through precision agriculture. In New Zealand, where they've managed to increase their exports to China by 470 per cent in one year by harnessing precision agriculture. And there's good work happening in Wales on this in the Gelli Aur college part of Coleg Sir Gâr. There is some really innovative work going on that both helps the environment and helps to create added value. So, I would make the argument that, in future, we should be targeting support, which we can agree on between ourselves, on these potential future growth areas rather than simply doing the same old thing time and again.

The other thing I want to suggest that would help achieve the intent of this motion is something we've also discussed. Can I just make—?