Dan Poulter
Main Page: Dan Poulter (Conservative - Central Suffolk and North Ipswich)Department Debates - View all Dan Poulter's debates with the Wales Office
Farming in Wales and the UK
Dan Poulter Excerpts(1 month, 3 weeks ago)
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Jonathan Edwards
I am extremely grateful for that very valuable contribution. Later in my speech I will talk about how the agricultural community needs to perceive us as wanting to work with them, as opposed to being unsympathetic towards them, which, unfortunately, is especially the case in Wales at the moment.
Returning to my point about the NFU gathering, following the meeting, NFU Cymru president Aled Jones said:
“The food and farming supply chain is an £8 billion industry in Wales that employs some 233,000 people, Wales’ biggest employer. As a sector we are completely interlinked with each part of the supply chain relying on the other for their viability.
A productive, progressive and profitable Welsh farming sector is essential to the wider supply chain, farmers spend around £1.4bn annually on products such as feed, fertiliser, veterinary and medicines, farm machinery and contract work. The produce from our farms is processed and sold in retail and food service markets in Wales, across the UK and globally.”
To return to the issue of intervention, we get the impression that policymakers at a Welsh level in particular view our farmers as some sort of economic burden. Their mindset needs to be turned around, and a key part of that is accepting the anchor status of farming for the whole rural economy.
Dr Dan Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)
I congratulate the hon. Member on securing this debate, and I very much agree with all the points that he has made. He will be aware that in much of East Anglia, just as in Wales, one in eight jobs in rural communities are linked to agriculture, food and drink, and the wider supply chain. I wonder whether more can be done to support the agricultural sector through public sector procurement, such as the UK Government and the devolved Governments introducing minimum requirements for food in our hospitals and our schools to be purchased from local farmers.
Jonathan Edwards
I am extremely grateful for that intervention. I think that such a policy would give the added bonus of providing high-quality food in hospitals and schools, which we should be aspiring to achieve as policymakers.