2. Business Statement and Announcement

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 2:36 pm on 8 March 2022.

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Photo of Andrew RT Davies Andrew RT Davies Conservative 2:36, 8 March 2022

Minister, you will have heard the exchanges that the First Minister and I had in relation to food security. I'm obviously questioning you today as leader of the house, but, obviously, you wear the other hat of rural affairs Minister, and you are the sponsoring Minister for the agricultural Bill that you will be bringing in in April, I believe. I cannot overstate the dilemma that we face with what is going on in Ukraine. We've heard about the refugee crisis, we see the brutality of the scenes on tv, every night, every morning, every waking hour, really. But coming down the tracks at us in the next two, three, four months, and indeed, two, three, four years, is this issue of the complete destabilisation of that region and its ability to produce food, not just for this part of Europe but for the world. It has changed the fundamental gravity, I would suggest, of where this Bill needs to sit in our food security requirements. As I've said, wheat has doubled in price, and going forward on the futures market, for November, it will be far higher than even today—it might be over £300 a tonne. Other commodities are going north when it comes to food production as well, as well as the fertilisers, herbicides and pesticides that are required to grow these crops. A farmer can only make that decision once in a year, and if that decision isn't made then, then that year is lost, and it takes two years to catch up.

Could we have a statement on what your officials and, in particular, you as Minister believe are the actions that the Welsh Government now need to take to reactivate the mentality within the Welsh agricultural community to grow for food security? Because I know they're up for that challenge and they want to play their part, albeit, and I acknowledge, the relatively small agricultural land base that we have in Wales. But there is an opportunity here that we need to grasp and make sure that we play our part in making sure that, whilst Ukraine remains destabilised, we are doing our bit to feed the nation and feed the world.