2. What action is the Welsh Government taking to support farmers in North Wales? OQ58261

Thank you. Alongside the basic payment scheme, I recently announced a package of support worth over £227 million for a number of schemes available to farmers across the whole of Wales. My officials will also consider derogation requests from farmers experiencing hardship due to the current economic situation.

Thank you for your answer, Minister. I'm sure you were delighted, as I was this week, to see the announcement that Welsh food and drink exports hit a record high, with Wales seeing the highest increase in value of exports between all four UK nations in the last year. In addition to this, the highest value export category was meat and meat products, and, of course, it's down to our fantastic farmers up and down the country. Indeed, last week I had the privilege of being a panel member at the Da Byw future of farming event in north Wales, and farmers there were keen to remind the panel that quality food production is, and always will be, central to farming. I'm regularly reminded of this too on social media by farmers like Gareth Wyn Jones in Llanfairfechan, who highlight the hard work that farmers carry out in feeding the nation. So, Minister, will you join me in thanking and congratulating our farmers across north Wales for their efforts in food production, and give assurances today that the upcoming agriculture Bill has food production central to its ambition?

Thank you. I certainly will be very happy to join you in congratulating all our farmers and our fantastic Welsh food and drink producers, who've achieved such an amazing amount of exports. And you couldn't get more challenging times, could you, for our exporters? Just last week, I visited a new business, only a year old, in Monmouth, and they were already exporting. It was a drink company, and they were already exporting their drink. I think for a company to be brave enough to export in these particularly challenging times—. And they were very grateful for the Welsh Government support there. I particularly enjoy looking at Gareth Wyn Jones's Twitter feed. He's very good, I think, at showing just what hard work farmers do to produce that amazing food. We really lead, I think, the world in Wales on the food that we produce here. I can assure you that both the sustainable farming scheme, which I will be publishing before the summer recess, and the agricultural Bill will absolutely have sustainable food production at their hearts.