Today, the Prime Minister hosted the UK Farm to Fork summit in Downing Street. This was a brilliant event, with food producers from across the UK attending.
During the summit, the Prime Minister announced a major package of measures to support domestic food production, boost innovation within the agricultural sector supporting it to reach its economic potential, and recruit the next generation of farming and food leaders.
The package announced also included a number of key measures to secure Welsh farming, including:
- The first UK Food Security Index, setting out key data and trends to allow government and industry to safeguard the UK’s food security and monitor short-term trends.
- A new horticulture resilience and growth scheme, doubling to £80m the amount given to horticulture businesses, replacing the outdated EU legacy Fruit and Vegetable Aid scheme.
- A promise to cut red tape for farmers and food producers.
In further good news for Montgomeryshire’s farmers, the Welsh Labour Government have now announced that their controversial Sustainable Farming Scheme will now be delayed until 2026. This is in no small part down thanks to a concerted campaign by NFU Cymru, the FUW, Welsh Conservatives and thousands of farmers across Wales to pressurise the Welsh Government into reversing this policy.
Economic data commissioned by the Welsh Government themselves had coasted that the SFS would result in a 10.8% reduction in Welsh livestock numbers, and an 11% cut in employment on Welsh farms – the equivalent of losing 5,500 jobs. This would have been a devastating blow to the agriculture sector across Montgomeryshire.
