Wales First Minister answering Samuel Kurtz MS on Sustainable Farming update

Wales First Minister answering Pembrokeshire’s Sam Kurtz on Sustainable Farming update, July 8, 2025

Transcript

00:00came to its relationship with the agricultural community here in Wales following protests in

00:05Europe. Only a month later over four and a half thousand farmers exercised their right to protest

00:10on the steps of the Senedd against the Welsh Government's Sustainable Farming Scheme. Now

00:15next week we're expecting an updated statement on the Sustainable Farming Scheme and we know

00:20that from the previous impact assessment which outlined that there would be job losses,

00:25livestock reduction and economic harm which led to the protest on the 28th of February. So how

00:31confident are you as First Minister that this new iteration of the SFS will not lead to a mass

00:37protest on the steps of the Senedd because the confidence in this Welsh agriculture

00:42from this community in this Government is at an all-time low.

00:49Thanks very much. Farmers have a right to protest as there's anybody else and that's absolutely

00:54within their rights. But let me just let me say something about the Sustainable Farming Scheme

00:59because I know that the Deputy First Minister has spent hours and hours and hours and hours

01:08listening to farmers and environmental groups about about what their concerns are and how they'd like

01:16to see the Sustainable Farming Scheme work. We have a responsibility to balance up all of the

01:24different needs within our communities and yes the agricultural community needs to be supported and

01:30boy are they supported over 250 million pounds worth of support on an annual basis. That's quite a big

01:36amount of support for a sector that contributes less than one percent to the GDP of the country. But I do

01:46think it's important also for us to take the opportunity to say actually you can play a really

01:53important role in terms of supporting the public in terms of the things that we also want to see

01:59delivered. The challenges of climate change are challenges for the agricultural community themselves

02:05and I think there's an important role for us to get the balance here and I'd like to thank the Deputy

02:10First State Minister on his huge efforts on this. Clearly he's been working with the agricultural unions

02:19and we hope that next week we will get a constructive response from the agricultural sector.

02:26Thank you very much.

02:32Thank you very much.