Dairy Farming

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr. McCrea. I pay tribute to my constituency neighbour, the hon. Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Mr. Crabb), for securing this debate. The hon. Gentleman, the hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski) and I have raised these issues on numerous occasions, and have ensured that, for the past five years, we have an annual debate on agriculture in this Chamber. As the hon. Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire said, some aspects of dairy farming are devolved. I shall endeavour to delve into the devolved settlement, but I want to focus on producers, suppliers and retailers and the relationship between them. That is the fundamental problem that our dairy industry faces. I hesitate to use the word "crisis" as it is emotive, but figures on the long-term position of dairy farming in Wales show that it is in serious decline. In 1994, there were 5,300 dairy farmers. The number had fallen to 3,600 by 2004, and figures for December 2009 show that it has now fallen to 2,059. Those figures show that 60 per cent. of Welsh dairy farmers have left farming over the past 15 years, something that I think is reflected in England. There was an important geographic message from the hon. Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire. He does not like the word "Dyfed". Neither do I; it is an old county term that describes our area. However, I will use it now because half of the dairy farmers of Wales are from Dyfed—from my constituency of Ceredigion, and from Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire. We can wax lyrical about the social implications of the loss of the dairy sector, but it is a reality. We are talking not about isolated farms appended to big towns but about large areas of the rural economy being dependent on farmers and farming families. Losing those farms and those families has implications well beyond the production of milk. It affects village schools and the local economy more generally. I concur with what the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew) said about county starter farms and encouraging young entrants into the industry. We lost our farms in Ceredigion a long time ago. One of the dispiriting things about making farm visits and meeting the two farming unions in Wales is the constant repetition of questions. Five years ago, questions were asked about young farmers and how to attract people into the industry, and we are still facing the same problems. I have had some emotive discussions with farmers who want to pass on their farms to their children, but find that their children drift away and move into other areas, because there is perceived to be no future in the industry. At the end of the farming hustings in Ceridigion, we always ask the question, "If you had a child, would you encourage them to stay in the farming industry?" Many say, "In all honesty, with hand on heart, we could never make that recommendation given the state of the industry." There have been some glimmers. I congratulate the Minister on ensuring that Wales has received a fair distribution of the £25 million EU rescue package, which, as far as I can tell, was calculated on the proportion of dairy cattle rather than on the Barnett formula, and I pay tribute to the Assembly Government for their role in that. I share a constituency with the Minister who has responsibility for rural affairs, and I pay tribute to her for the work that she has done. However, I should like some clarification on future emergency spending. If we need such spending again—I hope that we do not—will it be allocated according to relative need rather than population?