6. Statement by the Cabinet Secretary for Energy, Planning and Rural Affairs: The Future of Land Management

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:34 pm on 8 May 2018.

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Photo of Lesley Griffiths Lesley Griffiths Labour 5:34, 8 May 2018

Thank you, Jenny Rathbone, for those points. I think you're right about horticulture, and I mentioned in an earlier answer that there are 10,000 farms that don't have access to any funding under the basic payment scheme, and I'm sure some of them will be included in relation to horticulture. So, again, I go back: we've got that blank piece of paper now, and we can make sure that we have a look at if there is a way to obviously include them in the funding.

Reducing food miles is very important to me, and I think you're absolutely right about schools, for instance, trying to source food within a smaller radius. I've had discussions with Cabinet colleagues around the National Procurement Service improving opportunities for sourcing that Welsh food and drink, and, again, I think that's a really big opportunity here. And we've got a food category forum that is committed to providing opportunities for all suppliers to compete for tenders, for instance. So, I want to see schools and other aspects of the public sector able to do that.

Food and drink is very important—I realise that I didn't answer Neil Hamilton's questions around food and drink. We've got a fantastic food and drink sector here in Wales. You'll be aware that our target was to increase turnover to £7 billion by 2020. At the end of 2016 we were already at £6.9 billion, so I'm looking at what target we need to do next. So, again, I need to make sure that the schemes that we do bring forward under our new agricultural policy enable us to do that.

I'd like to see other schemes. I know that, previously, under the rural development programme, for instance, we've supported community growing spaces in Wales, working with community farms, community gardens, community orchards, and you're right, we do need to plant more—we need to plant more trees, but we certainly need to plant more fruit trees also. So, I want to look at how we can support schemes like that. Also, community allotments are very, very important to the food and drink sector. Again, I go back to that blank piece of paper where we can start again and we can look at how we support everybody—you know, SMEs, micro food businesses. I'd like to be able to facilitate market engagement, which I don't think we've done enough of.