Part of 3. Questions to the Minister for Environment, Energy and Rural Affairs – in the Senedd at 12:41 pm on 24 June 2020.
Good afternoon, Minister. The dairy support fund is very welcome for farmers in Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire, but they have asked me a number of questions on it. One of which was: why did you decide to calculate it on the price of the milk unit rather than 25 per cent of the overall loss of income? Because some of them pointed out that, although the price that they may get per litre of milk remains the same, or isn't quite 25 per cent less, they've actually lost massive amounts of volume. That leads me on to a second point, which is: I wonder if you could give us an outline of what you might be able to do to help increase the take-up of milk and dairy products by, not just the general public, but by helping farmers to diversify more, because, as we know, the hospitality industry has really crashed and that's where a lot of my farmers have lost their marketplace.