Farming and the Future

Plaid Cymru recognises the immense contribution that the agricultural sector makes to Wales. The multiple challenges facing the sector means that it’s time to forge a new context for agriculture in Wales, starting with putting the resilience of our family farms at the heart of the industry’s renaissance, re-casting our farm support system for a post-Covid, post-Brexit era gives us a once-in-a-generation opportunity to make the decisive changes needed, with a focus on sustainability and co-operation.

We support Welsh farmers in their aim to be one of the most environmentally sustainable farming sectors globally.

We would introduce a Welsh Agriculture Bill that will place a greater emphasis on public goods such as decarbonisation, sustainable food production, and enhanced biodiversity.

We also recognise that in order for farms to be environmentally sustainable they must be economically sustainable, we would introduce a baseline support payment to offer the industry greater economic stability. This support would be used to encourage the highest standards of public health and animal health and welfare, and to facilitate a greater shift towards more low carbon and high nature value farming.

We would also utilise wider investment to support the transition to more sustainable and diverse forms of land use, including organic farming, regenerative agriculture, agroforestry and mixed farming.

A Plaid Cymru Government would commit to the full use of the EU 2014-20 Rural Development Programme funding by 2023, we would also retain a commitment to our share of funding towards what would have been the successor 2021-27 Rural Development Programme.

We would commission an independent review of the effectiveness and value for money of RDP projects thus far which will inform our proposals for future rural support.