Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Rural Affairs and North Wales, and Trefnydd – in the Senedd at 2:59 pm on 28 September 2022.
The COVID-19 pandemic, the Ukrainian war and, of course, our climate crisis have made it absolutely clear that we have to reduce our reliance on imported food. The £8.5 billion Welsh food and farming sector, of course, can help us to do that, and we need to give thanks to our Welsh farmers, who play a massive part in producing climate-friendly and good-quality local produce. Now, we welcome the Agriculture (Wales) Bill, but it does have a significant and fundamental flaw. Whilst you quite rightly stated that the production of food should be the first objective, that is actually out of sync with potentially forcing our farmers now to have 10 per cent tree cover on their land through the sustainable farming scheme, and by, of course, that awful measure of expanding the nitrate vulnerable zones from 2.4 per cent to 100 per cent of Welsh farmland. Now, rather than championing my farmers in Aberconwy in producing local climate-friendly food, what they are witnessing is a Welsh Government—and they tell me this—that is coming at their businesses with a guillotine, cutting their production ability and their chances of survival. So, will you ensure that the production of food is not just a legislative objective and that it does become a reality, and will you also review some of the regulatory burdens you have imposed prior to the emergencies that I have just described now, so that our farmers stand at least a good chance of producing and providing us with that local food we all so badly need?