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Dept for Environment Food and Rural Affairs

Answer

Mr. Soames: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what financial support she has given to the south-east in each of the last five years; and what she plans to give in the next two years. [119658] Alun Michael: [holding answer 16 June 2003]: Direct support from the Department to the regional food sector falls under two main areas: support for the development of the sector as a whole via Food From Britain (FFB) and through schemes under the England Rural Development Programme (ERDP). In addition to this, financial support is also available from the South East England Development Agency (SEEDA) to which the Department provides funds. Over the last five years, financial support for food from the south east was as follows: £ _________________________________________________________________________________________________. Source 1998-99 1999-2000 2000-01 2001-02 2002-03 Food From Britain1 55, 289 45,084 67,000 222,319 121,458 ERDP2 -- -- -- 301,000 1,401,000 SEEDA3 -- 30,000 90,000 20,000 55,000 _________________________________________________________________________________________________. 1 The figures include funding under the Countryside Agency's Eat the View project (2000-01 to 2002-03), the Department's Foot and Mouth Recovery fund (2001-02) and start-up funding for the regional food group (1998-99 to 2000-01). 2 This covers funding under the Processing and Marketing Grant (PMG) Scheme and Rural Enterprise Scheme (RES)--Marketing of Quality Agricultural Products. 3 Includes funding to support the marketing of local produce and support for the red meat sector. It does not include the £840,000 available for the development of food related enterprise hubs (as follows). For the future, as part of the Department's regional food strategy, Food From Britain will receive £1,260,000 per annum for this year and for the next two from Defra for the promotion of English regional food and drink. In the first year of the programme, the South East Food Group Partnership will receive £120,000 to implement a series of regional level activities in support of the overall regional food strategy. Under the ERDP, the following sums have been allocated for projects in the south east under the RES and the PMG: £1,468,000 (2003-04), £1,647,000 (2004-05) and £1,771,000 (2005-06). In addition, small on-farm food processing projects are among the wide range of activities that are eligible for support within the budget allocated to the Farm Diversification category of the RES. SEEDA is also supporting the development of two enterprise hubs linked to the food sector with £840,000 over a three-year period from autumn 2002. It is also developing plans to make available a substantial amount of funding over the next three years (2003-04 to 2005-06) to support the development of the local food sector in the south east to implement aspects of the Regional Economic Strategy and the Delivery Plan for Defra's Strategy for Sustainable Farming and Food.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

407 c672W;407 c674W; 119658

Session

2002-03

Subjects

Agriculture Finance Food Marketing Rural development programme Food From Britain Processed food Subsidies South East South East England Development Agency

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk