Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Rural Affairs and North Wales, and Trefnydd – in the Senedd at 2:47 pm on 9 March 2022.
You may have heard the Minister for Finance and Local Government, in her answer to a question around food procurement, which is obviously part of the free school meals and the work that's ongoing around these issues—. The work is being led by Caerphilly County Borough Council, and they're looking at how we can increase supply of Welsh food in school meals. And I mentioned the support that we give to farming, because if pig farming is a very small part of the agriculture sector here in Wales, horticulture is even smaller; it only makes up 1 per cent of the agriculture sector. So, as you know, it's something that I've been very keen to promote, and, to encourage farmers, if they wish to go into the horticulture part of farming, we will offer support.
I think one of the things that we need to do, if we're going to maximise opportunities for local suppliers and encourage more producers to come forward, is that public procurement needs to change. We really need to move away from that lowest cost in food tenders and make sure that we build in social value and environmental value, and also quality considerations. I think people need to appreciate the value of local provenance. So, this is a piece of work that's currently ongoing, particularly in relation, as you say, to free school meals, which is part of the co-operation agreement.