: What progress has the
Welsh Government made on increasing the amount of vegetables and
fruit grown in Wales in the last year?
(Minister for Rural
Affairs and North Wales, and Trefnydd): Thank you. Whilst
annual statistics on fruit and vegetable production are not
collected, the Welsh Government has continued to provide
comprehensive support for growers in Wales. This includes the
horticulture development and start-up schemes for farmers.
Tailored advice and training is also being offered to growers
through Farming Connect.
: I am concerned to hear
you say that we don't collect statistics on the amount of
vegetables and fruit grown in Wales, because we know that the
climate across Europe is changing at a rate that is surprising
even those of us who've been warning about this for some time.
The weather at the moment in southern Europe is more akin to what
happens in July and August. There will be no rain for at least 10
days in any of the places from where we normally import
vegetables and fruit, and you can see how a gathering crisis of
distribution of foodstuffs that we normally relied on—Brexit
hasn't helped, obviously—means that we must surely focus on how
much we need to be producing in order to ensure that everybody
has access to a healthy, balanced diet. We know that two in 10
people have no access to a healthy, balanced diet, because
they're relying on foodbanks, who almost always are unable to
provide a healthy, balanced diet in what the supermarkets
choose to dish out.
So, we can't afford to go backwards, and I want to understand how
the interim arrangements, pending the full adoption of the
sustainable farming scheme, are going to promote what is a major
food security issue, which is the need to grow more vegetables
and fruit in this country, because we cannot rely on what is
coming from abroad.
: Thank you. Well, as
you know, the horticultural part of the agricultural sector is an
area I've been very keen to grow. And we've seen a slight
improvement—I think it was 0.1 per cent when I came into
portfolio, and that sort of equated to, I think, a quarter of a
portion per person per day. And the ambition, for me, is to grow
it to around 2 per cent, where that would then cover five
portions per day, per person. So, we've put significant funding
into it with our horticulture start-up and development grant
schemes.
I mentioned in my answer to that it's really
important organic farmers were able to access the Habitat scheme.
It takes a lot of time and effort for organic farms to become, if
you like, to go from conventional to organic, so I'm really keen
to maintain organic farmers going forward. And they've been
undertaking sustainable land management practices for many years
through their organic certification, so that's one of the reasons
I was very keen to ensure that happened with the Habitat scheme.
We will continue to look at what support we can give to our
organic farmers, and also I've ensured that Farming Connect—a
strand of our new Farming Connect programme—is going to focus
wholly on horticulture, because it does recognise that there is a
breadth of specialist advice that that sector needs.
