Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Rural Affairs and North Wales – in the Senedd at 2:58 pm on 25 May 2022.
Thank you. We do certainly recognise what an uncertain period this is, for a variety of reasons, for the agricultural sector as a whole, and I mentioned that my officials attend the agricultural market monitoring group, and that is where, obviously, we do monitor very closely what is going on in our sector here in Wales. I met a farmer—I can't remember if it was in the Chamber or in a committee where I discussed this—who had bought a supply of fertiliser in February, and when I saw him, which was only about three weeks later, it had increased threefold in price, and he said to me, 'I don't know whether to spread it or sell it'. I think he was joking, but I absolutely understood the concerns he had about the price.
I think this is, obviously, a long-term issue. It is really important we do continue to talk to our stakeholders. I mentioned I speak to stakeholders regularly. One other stakeholder I spoke to was the banks, because I thought it was really important to assess where they were, and the impact of the war, obviously, on agricultural businesses is something that they're obviously going to have to deal with. So, we will continue to support the industry. We're thinking—. Well, we're not thinking; we are going to set up a hub so that we can signpost people much quicker than we are doing to give them advice and guidance on how best to react to these very high input costs we're seeing.