7. What assessment has the Cabinet Secretary made of how developments in artificial intelligence can help rural Wales? OAQ52114

Thank you. Technological change, including artificial intelligence, can enable shared prosperity across Wales, building inclusive communities, and support our plans for regional economic development. The Welsh Government has recently launched a review into digital innovation, which will take a broad assessment of advancements in automation, robotics, artificial intelligence, the internet of things and big data.

Thank you very much. I'd be grateful if you could confirm whether precision agriculture would specifically fall within the remit of that review. The Assembly's economy committee this morning has been holding hearings on the subject, and has heard how precision agriculture is already helping improve productivity on farms, as well as reducing environmental impacts. We were told very clearly that data is now seen as an agricultural product. But the support available from the Welsh Government is fragmented and inflexible. Farming Connect, for example, can only be used to fund 10 soil tests, which isn't enough, and is only available to fund basic GPS. It's been some time now since the National Assembly voted to ask the Welsh Government to develop a strategy for precision agriculture, so that we see this not just as a farming issue, but as an issue for Wales's resilience, to create an industry—so, rather than importing the robots from China and the software from America and exporting our data, seeing how we can harness this for the good of Wales. I would be grateful if the Cabinet Secretary could outline a timeline of when we can expect that strategy to be developed.

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.

Cabinet Secretary, in response to an individual Members' debate on this issue in November 2016, you said, and I quote:

'The Welsh Government is working closely with our stakeholders and delivery bodies to maximise agri-tech research income into Wales.'

In light of these comments, can you tell us how successful the Welsh Government has been to date, and can you also give us an indication of how much agri-tech research income Wales has received to date?

I can't give the Member that figure at the present time, but, again, I would be very happy to write to you with that figure.FootnoteLink

Information further to Plenary