6. Statement by the Minister for Climate Change: Water Quality

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:54 pm on 15 November 2022.

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Photo of Julie James Julie James Labour 4:54, 15 November 2022

Thank you very much for that. Of course, my colleague Lesley Griffiths and I have been working very, very closely together, as have all our officials, on this. We can't do this without our farmers—that's the truth of it—without our landowners, so of course they're absolutely pivotal. We work with the farming unions and with groups of other farmers. I had farmers on my biodiversity deep dive, for example; they are absolutely fundamental to our ability to do this. This is to modernise our farming practices, to make sure that farmers use what's necessary and no more, to actually save them money, and to get the precision agriculture in place that we would like to see right across Wales. But it's also to encourage—[Interruption.] Yes; the sustainable agriculture initiatives—not just the SFS, but all the others as well—are all designed to reward farmers who do the right thing, and that's the whole purpose of them. In fact, we've learnt a lot from groups of farmers who came together outside of the scheme and put together projects that we've learnt from. It enabled them to do the hedges and edges project, for example. Also, I was very pleased, although a little bit sad, to go down and launch the very last European-funded initiative for Rivers for LIFE down in Carmarthenshire at the agricultural college there, to talk to the local farmers about how well that project has been received and what can be done when we all work together with our landowners to make sure that we put our rivers back into the pristine form that we would all very much like to see.