Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Rural Affairs and North Wales, and Trefnydd – in the Senedd at 2:50 pm on 2 February 2022.
I've always made it very clear that producing food is absolutely a priority for our farmers, of course it is. You say there are grave concerns. We've been out to consultation three times now. The scheme is still not designed; we want to co-design that scheme. You will have heard me say many times that if it's not the right scheme for our farmers it won't work, so it's really important that they're part of that co-design. We're just asking farmers, and you may be one, to work with us in the summer when we go to the second part of the co-design of the scheme. What's really important, as we've said all along, is public money for public goods. When you say there are grave concerns, I don't hear those grave concerns in the way I did four or five years ago. I do think it's really important that we work together to make sure we get it right. Of course we will continue to support our farmers to produce food that has a low carbon footprint, but they will also be rewarded for the things that they don't get paid for at the moment—so, the clean air, the clean water, the work they do about mitigating flood, the work they do around mitigating drought, the work they do around animal health and welfare. I think it's really important that there is that balance. There has to be that balance, or it just won't work.