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Agricultural Policy

Yes, indeed. That has been raised by all the farming unions and by tenant farmers as well. I have spoken, as I am sure the Minister with responsibility for agriculture has, directly with the Commissioner and his staff and they are aware of that possibility, which is encouraging. They are minded to try to find a way through it. However, the problem is that we have before us quite a complex and potentially burdensome set of proposals that a lot of people will have to spend a great deal of time working their way through to interpret it effectively for Wales or the UK. Within UK farming, Wales has its own particular dimension, with much farming consisting of small, family farms that do not have great expertise behind them that they can simply draw upon to sort things out. In the remaining months of negotiation, we will have to find a simple way through the CAP reform, both in terms of new entrants and any obstacles to that, as well as a range of other issues that I will come to in a moment. Earlier on, much of the debate focused on food security and the environment, both of which farmers deliver on, although no one recognises that. However, the other dimension that is extremely pertinent today and in any future discussion of farming is the its economic importance. It is not simply a matter of the coal face end of food production, just as that is not the case with fisheries either. It is the whole supply chain—the whole manufacturing and food production base and the end product. I was in middle England yesterday looking at one of the largest shell egg producers in the UK. They are not simply producers; they package it, brand it, market it, put it in different formats on the shelves, and they also use the by-products to produce desserts and so on. I have to say that I did not come away with any samples, Mr Caton, otherwise I would have brought them to the Committee and shared them round. They make Gü—other lovely desserts are available, but Gü is in my fridge at home.