Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:15 pm on 18 June 2019.
I thank Jenny Rathbone for that, Llywydd. I was in Aberystwyth yesterday in the IBERS building to address a meeting of the Farmers Union of Wales. It was a very good place to do that, because of the long and successful history of plant breeding at the institute and the way in which that can support local food production. I heard a lot of both interesting and encouraging ideas that are being developed there as part of any future mid Wales growth deal, to make local food production central to the way in which that deal will be developed using that expertise. When I spoke to the AGM of the FUW they were absolutely seized of the points that Jenny Rathbone has just made, very anxious about the prospects for their industry of leaving the European Union without a deal, fearful of what that will mean for agriculture here in Wales, but interested, definitely, in new possibilities in horticulture. Horticulture is a small but key part of agricultural production here in Wales, and through 'Brexit and our land', which is what I was there to talk to farmers about, I hope that we will, working closely with them, be able to demonstrate that there is a successful future for sustainable farming here in Wales in which sustainable food production and the delivery of public goods go hand in hand, and where new opportunities in horticulture, for exactly the reasons that Jenny Rathbone has outlined, become more available to farming communities in Wales, so that local production of food for local consumption, avoiding food miles, assisting with the impact of Brexit, providing reliable income streams to farmers—all of those things come together in our plan. I was very glad of a chance to explore that with practitioners in the farming world yesterday, and I think that we have a set of ingredients here in Wales that will be successful both in the farming field, but also in the environmental issues to which Jenny Rathbone referred.