3. Statement by the Minister for Rural Affairs, North Wales, and Trefnydd: Future Farming Policy and the Sustainable Farming Scheme

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:20 pm on 21 September 2021.

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Photo of Lesley Griffiths Lesley Griffiths Labour 3:20, 21 September 2021

Thank you very much, Joyce Watson. I think you're quite right: it's not just about food production, is it? It is about that social fabric. When I went out to New Zealand to see how they'd fared after they'd had that cliff edge that we will absolutely not have, where they stopped their direct support for farmers back in, I think it was 1983, that was the one thing they told me about, that they lost so many small farms. You don't get small farms in New Zealand now, they're absolutely massive, and they lost that sense of community. And, of course, we have the Welsh language as well, and the agricultural sector use the Welsh language more than any other sector in Wales. So, it's very important when we're bringing this scheme forward that we take all of those things into consideration.

We are looking at how we can support them to get to those zero emissions, as you say, and I mentioned in a previous answer about the equipment that we had offered to help them with innovation and artificial intelligence. So, those are schemes that we've had. We've had several farm business grant schemes, et cetera, and they've been given support to decide what is the best equipment to use on their farms. This isn't necessarily part of this; this is something that we've been doing to try and help our farmers reduce their carbon emissions in the meantime.