Artificial Intelligence and Rural Wales

Part of 1. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Energy, Planning and Rural Affairs – in the Senedd at 2:05 pm on 9 May 2018.

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Photo of Lesley Griffiths Lesley Griffiths Labour 2:05, 9 May 2018

I think it's really important that precision farming isn't considered in isolation. It does need to be part of a broader agriculture and land use strategy post Brexit, and it's certainly something that I want to see when I go out to consultation on the future of land management, following my statement yesterday. I think precision agriculture needs to be embedded in every aspect of farming, and that's through use of better genetics, targeting inputs use, and gathering and using data. 

You will be aware that, across the Government, particularly in innovation and information and communications technology leads, we're working with academic institutions—and my colleague Julie James is leading on that—because we are looking at further work that's going to be relevant to precision agriculture. We're also promoting it, as you say, through Farming Connect initiatives, and that is another area that we can look at to expand the schemes that we have in it. I'm also looking at part funding of technology through the farm business grant. But, again, when we look at the funding that we have post Brexit, we can see if there are other schemes that we can bring forward also.