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 3:12 pm on 21 September 2021.

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Photo of Lesley Griffiths Lesley Griffiths Labour 3:12, 21 September 2021

Thank you, and thank you for your words of support as well. It is really important that we continue to work very closely with our farmers. What I want to make sure is that what we are proposing is practical. So, it's important that all farm types are able to access the new scheme, so I think that is an important area of economic analysis for us too. In relation to your two specific questions, I cannot commit to keep the same funding, the domestic part of the rural development programme funding, until after the comprehensive spending review. I really don't know what my budget is going to be, so, at the moment, whilst I'm looking at what we can do to build on the rural development programme, I'm unable to offer that commitment until after the CSR.

I absolutely agree with you around mental health issues with our farmers, and I was talking last week in a forum where I was saying that, when I first came into the portfolio, it became very clear that many farmers felt isolated; the only time they saw another person was when they went to market, for instance. So, one of the things I've been doing, I've been working with quite a few charities within the agricultural sector, and particularly over the COVID-19 pandemic, because as you can imagine they were getting far more calls during the pandemic than previously, to make sure that support was there. So, I've put significant and particular funding into the DPJ Foundation, which I'm sure you're aware of, to help them go out to train other people, because I think it's really important that that best practice is spread throughout Wales. And so they have been able to train people—perhaps somebody who works in a farmer's market, where they can go to talk to individual farmers, if they are able to have that conversation with them, because, again, I think one of the things I picked up was that sometimes they don't like to ask for help, in a way that is—. We don't want to see that; we want people to ask for help and to be signposted to the best place. So, I met with my colleague, the Deputy Minister, Lynne Neagle, last week to discuss how we continue to fund it. She'd been on a very good visit the previous Friday to the DPJ Foundation to hear about the excellent work they're doing.