 Great. Well, nos with that, everybody. Good evening and welcome to the Welsh Government's Sustainable Farming Scheme Live event. Cres o cenedlau sy'r digwyddiad byw yma i drafod y cynllun ffermio cynaliadwyd newydd. Alla Jones o dwi, am Alla Jones. I'm going to be chairing this Q&A session for the next hour or so, and I'm grateful to have the company of, I think, 60 attendees at the moment and the numbers are increasing every second. So it's great. There's been some strong interest in this session because last week, the Minister for Rural Affairs, Leslie Griffiths, published her outline proposals for the new Sustainable Farming Scheme. The scheme, of course, will replace BPS and is proposed to start in 2025. Some of you may have already had an opportunity to read the documents, maybe just take a quick glance, or maybe not at all. But tonight's an opportunity for us to unpick some of the detail behind the proposals and walk through that 70 page document chapter by chapter in a conversational Q&A style of format with James Owen, the Deputy Director for Land Management Reform with the Welsh Government. I'll ask James to introduce himself in just a moment. Before we do that, however, I just have some quick housekeeping points to go through. This session is being recorded here tonight and a copy of the recording will be made available shortly afterwards on the Welsh Government website. Please feel free to ask as many questions as you want. I can see some activity already in the Q&A box, which is brilliant. So this is the opportunity for us to put your questions to James to understand a bit more about how this scheme is going to operate. Mae'n agroes o'ch chi, wrth gwrs, i ofyn cwestiwn yn y gyfrag, wrth gwrs, felly wedi'i gydag chi, na'i mwre i gyfweithi ar y pryd. Felly, gwneud bod siŵr bwch i'n gofyn cwestiwn, a mae'r rhaid iddyn gennych chi i ddewis peiaeth sy'n mwy cyfrddys i chi wneud hynny. So, we will try and cover off all the questions that we can in the time we have allowed for this evening. If we fail to do so, I am told that the Welsh Government are working on a FAQ document, a Frequently Asked Questions document, which, again, will be published on their website very soon. So, as I mentioned at the beginning, I'm joined here this evening by James Owen, the Deputy Director for Land Management Reform. Croeso Cynes, welcome James. James, can you just tell us a bit about your background, your role and your involvement in the scheme development to date? Well, Nossofara Alled a Nossofara Pow, fantastic to be here this evening and an opportunity to, I think you're right in terms of walking through the scheme proposals that we published last week, and looking forward to a healthy debate and, no doubt, lots of questions as we go through. I did want to say I just hope everyone's keeping well in the warm and the heat that we've got at the moment. It's really, I know, busy time for farmers at this stage. Looking forward to further engagement over the course of the next few weeks and months through the show season as well. So really looking forward to continuing the conversation in person in many events as well. My role in the Welsh Government is to develop the policy and the programme for our sustainable farming scheme. Many of you will know that we have consulted on our proposals three times since the Brexit referendum in 2016. We've developed our proposals, we've worked in co-design with farmers over that period to develop them into the document that we published last week. I'm also responsible for the evidence programme that supports the actions that sit behind the proposals and the agriculture bill, so developing the provisions that will form part of the bill that the Minister will introduce into the centre later this year. So, yeah, great to be here tonight and looking forward to a really good debate. Brilliant, thank you very much James. Now, as you're aware, there have been several consultations starting with Brexit in our land, and what's different about this document that was published last week? Yeah, thanks Aled. So, I think, first of all, it's the most information we've published about our proposed scheme at all, actually. So over the period of time since our Brexit in our land consultation in 2018, we've been developing the policy to sit behind, if you like, the high level framework, and we were really delighted that we could publish last week details of the actions that we want farmers to undertake as part of the scheme, more information about the process that we see supporting it, and also, crucially, I think linking the different types of outcomes that we're seeking to achieve through the scheme back to those actions. So, a lot more detail, I think, than we've published before. We've also tried our very best, and grateful for any views or feedback on that, to make this a farmer-friendly document. So, we've written this with the farmer in mind. We've tried to explain in the best way that we can exactly how we see the proposed scheme operating, the types of actions that we want farmers to undertake, and what essentially the process for entry to the scheme will be. So, again, it's really exciting to have the document out there and to be able to talk to people about it now, having us worked on it over iterations in the last couple of years. Yeah, and with the document now in public, it's been on your website for over a week. I'm sure a lot of people have had a look at it, and there's been some reaction, I'm sure, from the farming unions and the farming community more broadly. How would you assess, James, the reaction and response to what's been proposed to date? Yeah, I think it's been a broadly positive response. You know, we've had a lot of engagement over the last couple of years with the farming unions, with other stakeholder representatives, and of course with farmers themselves. And I think that's hopefully helped with some of that positive response, because what we've tried to do is develop the proposals based on the feedback that we've received from those stakeholders and those farmers. So, I think broadly positive. We've, of course, had a lot of questions, and I can see there's one already in the Q&A around trees, and we'll no doubt come to that during the course of this session. And of course, that was, I think, the headline on the BBC site was around tree planting. But I would like to think, well, there is a huge amount more in the scheme that we'll want to maybe talk about tonight than just that kind of media headline, because I think it is a really important document for farmers. One of our aims really in publishing at this time is to have both engagement, but also to prepare farmers for the changes that we're proposing. So, we do want sometimes to look behind the headlines that are put out in terms of response to scheme and maybe talk a bit about some of the detail of the actions that sit underneath it. And whilst these are proposals at this stage, am I writing saying, James, that this is not a formal consultation at this stage? Yeah, that's absolutely right. So, there are some, you know, formal legal processes that we have to go through around consultation, which is essentially to publish a proposal and then wait a period of time before assessing responses. What we wanted to do with this document was to have some genuine engagement on what we're proposing in the scheme. So, not a formal consultation. We're really interested in the views of farmers and stakeholders and other interested parties actually in the proposed scheme, recognising that it is a significant landmark change for the future of agriculture in Wales and the support provided by government. So, we felt going into a process of co-design where we could test the proposals, the deliverability and practicality of those proposals with farmers in a more perhaps informal and hopefully engaging way would be better than a formal consultation. But just in terms of, you know, the minister has committed next year to undertake a formal consultation on the final scheme proposals. So, we're about a year out, I think, from developing our final proposals, which we will then consult on. And just picking up on the question that's in the Q&A, and I'm sure you'll want to come on to some of the bits around trialling the new scheme later on when you're walking through the chapters, James. But there is a question at the beginning saying, how will the Welsh Government ensure that the correct stakeholders are engaged and consulted? This is a conversation, it's an evolution. So, how are you going to make sure that happens? And you might want to touch a bit about the pilot or defer that pilot question to later on when you're talking through the document. Yeah, maybe if I could talk about piloting later. But I think it's a really good question. I mean, what we've been trying to do over the last couple of years is develop, you know, as I say, effective ways of sharing information about our proposals with stakeholders. So we've worked with the farming unions to share iterations of, you know, some of the ideas we had behind the actions. We've worked with a range of bodies in terms of developing the evidence that sits behind the actions and demonstrating, if you like, the link between the actions we'll ask farmers to undertake and the outcomes that we hope they will deliver. In terms of our next stage, what we've asked stakeholders, and we had a meeting, actually, of, I think, 30 or so stakeholder organisations on Friday, what we've asked them to do is to obviously encourage their members to read the proposals, to engage in our co-design period, and then directly for those organisations themselves, we will be looking to hold a series of working groups, essentially, to talk through some of the various aspects of the proposals as part of the co-design process. So, for example, we know, you know, we will want to test the proposals in relation to tenant farmers. So we'll want to create a tenancy working group with stakeholders to work through how the proposals may work for tenant farmers, any barriers they may face, and what we might need to look at specifically for tenant farmers. In the same way, we want to do that around common land. We want to do that around cross-border farms, new entrants to farming, and a few other subgroups. So the idea is to continue the dialogue that we've been having with stakeholders over the coming months, but maybe into some specific subject areas, so we can really test the proposals with them and how they work, or how they don't work, actually, for some sectors, so that we can listen to feedback and we can adapt our proposals accordingly. And there's been quite a bit of co-design already up until now. How successful has that been, James, and have you picked up on some of the key messages from that co-design in this latest document? I hope so. You know, I'm interested in the views of people on the call around that, but I think if you compare the publication of our proposals in 2018 to now, I think there is a fair amount of movement in terms of where government has listened and responded to some concerns about the initial proposals that we put out and the kind of priority and preference around how we've structured the design of the scheme. We've been really fortunate in our policy team to work with around 2,000 farmers who put their hands up to engage with us in a process of co-design initially, and we gained a huge amount of feedback and ideas really from working with those farmers around 18 months ago on what the scheme proposals might be. And that's a process that's continued right up until publication of the scheme. We've regularly tested, if you like, the ideas that form part of the scheme and the kind of actions that will ask farmers to undertake with farmers themselves. So they've very much been intrinsic to our kind of policy development process, but we do recognise that this is a great opportunity with publishing the scheme now to engage an even wider group of farmers, and crucially, as I mentioned earlier, to help them prepare for the introduction of the scheme in a couple of years' time. Brilliant. Thank you, James. I'm just keeping an eye on the Q&A there's lemon questions. That's brilliant. Keep them coming. I know there's a lot of questions around tree cover and the 10% as we expected, and James, I know you are going to pick up that in detail when we get to that section. So let's start by walking through the document, James, and I know you want to try and go through chapter by chapter. So I know chapter one is the executive summary, but chapter two is the scheme introduction, where you're laying down some of the objectives and some of the outcomes you want to see. So pick out some of the key highlights there. Yeah, thanks, Aled. So I think I'll probably cover this fairly briefly, but we've got a framework for future agricultural policy and support in Wales that we've proposed around sustainable land management, and that framework is designed really to recognise the complementary objectives, as we see it, of supporting farmers to produce food sustainably, alongside supporting them to take actions to deliver against the climate and nature emergencies, which are existential threats, if you like, to society. And we really want to support farmers in how we combat those situations. We also have an objective in there about supporting the vitality of rural communities and sustaining the Welsh language. So in the chapter, we really set out sustainable land management as our framework for future support. And I hope it gives a bit of an overarching flavour of what we're trying to do through the scheme, because, as I say, we're trying to achieve complementary objectives, not competing objectives. We want to support farmers to produce food sustainably, whilst at the same time supporting them for the actions they often already undertake on their farms, which deliver environmental outcomes. So we restate, if you like, our commitment to that framework. We also have published these before, but I think in a more helpful way, hopefully for farmers. We've also published what we call our outcomes, so our sustainable land management outcomes that we're hoping to achieve. And what we've done throughout the document is tie those outcomes to the actions that we're asking farmers to undertake. So we've made the direct link, if you like, between what we're asking a farmer to do and why we're asking them to do it, because those are the outcomes we're seeking to support. Finally, in the introduction, we talk a bit about the design principles that have informed how we've gone about the development of the scheme actually since 2018. And it's surprising, really, to think that the design principles themselves haven't changed much in substance, but they have guided our kind of hand, if you like, in terms of what we've been trying to do to bring this scheme to life, if you like, in this publication. So those principles about keeping farmers on the land, recognising the importance of food production for our nation, supporting a prosperous and resilient agriculture industry whilst, at the same time, maximising the delivery of those outcomes that I talked about. Those have been really key principles as we've designed the policy around the structure of the scheme and also how we want farmers to enter the scheme. And just finally, perhaps just to say a little bit about our general approach there, because often, I think, there's a bit of a polarised debate about the production of food and the environment. We very much favour a land sharing approach whereby the production of food happens alongside care and nature-friendly farming initiatives for the environment. And really, that's what the scheme has been designed to do. It's been designed to support farmers to produce food in harmony, if you like, with the environment. So doing it with that in mind. And I think for us that's been a really important principle that we've taken into the scheme design, and hopefully that comes through in the actions of the scheme. Brilliant. Thank you very much, and I can see there's loads of questions coming through. So I think it's best that we continue our walk through the document, James, and then we'll have a chance to try and look at some of the specifics that are being asked of you and the department. So that's the scheme introduction. Are you ready to go through the scheme structure, James? Yeah, absolutely. So I think this is an important point just to kind of talk through how we've gone about structuring the scheme. We've always said we wanted to put in place a whole farm scheme, so a scheme that recognise the farmers, the farmer who had active management of the land and their ability to undertake actions on that land. So we've designed it with three layers in mind. The first being a universal layer of actions, and for those of you who have seen the document, there's a kind of handy two-page pull out towards the back of the document, which summarises those universal actions. But really we see that as the entry layer to the scheme. So there's around 12 actions in there that we'd ask farmers to undertake in exchange for a baseline payment. We want all farmers to undertake those universal actions, and I'll probably talk a bit more about those universal actions as we go into the next chapter. And we believe that they will really help farmers both be resilient and productive businesses through helping them improve farm business performance, but also to undertake, as I say, the delivery of some of those outcomes that I mentioned in the chapter before. Above the second layer, if you like, of the scheme is a layer of optional actions. When you read, I think, the list of actions, there's a huge range of options that we would propose that farmers can undertake as part of the scheme to go, if you like, beyond the universal requirements. And what we've really tried to do here is to provide a lot of opportunity and options for farmers to do things which are right for their farm business. Now, some farmers may already be undertaking some of these option actions. Some may have ambition to undertake them, and some, it just may be the right thing for their business to do. But what we wanted to do was provide a range of opportunities for farmers to receive further support through the scheme if they were willing and wanted to undertake additional actions. So, again, quite a lot of detail there around the optional actions that we propose, and I hope there is something for most farmers to think about in terms of what they might want to access in the future there. And then the third layer of the scheme is our collaborative layer. And this is recognising really that there should be opportunity in the scheme for farmers to work together, to work together either at landscape or catchment scale to undertake actions which can deliver multiple outcomes. And that may be delivery of, for example, interventions around habitat, but it could equally be something relating to the supply chain, so where farmers might want to come together to form a cooperative, for example, and to support local food production in that sense. So, what we wanted to do for the scheme was have a vehicle for farmers to collaborate and to work together, perhaps with other actors who are outside the scheme to deliver again a multitude of benefits. And again, we've talked in the scheme a little bit about the types of collaborative actions that we would see. And we've obviously been running in the Welsh Government over previous years, things like our sustainable management scheme, which has given us a good insight into how farmers can collaborate even in the supply chain or at a landscape scale to deliver greater outcomes. I should say that the last thing about the scheme structure, which is really important, is what we're proposing to do is support farmers to go beyond the regulatory baseline. So, the baseline regulation in Wales, we've termed, we coined the phrase, National Minimum Standards, and that's essentially a consolidation of the existing legislation that exists in relation to agricultural practices. What we want to do is to reward farmers for going above and beyond regulation, whilst at the same time supporting them to understand what those standards require of them, so what the law requires. So, we proposed that we will consolidate and simplify wherever we can the existing legislation around agricultural practice into a set of national minimum standards, and they'll be ready in time for the scheme. I mean, in reality, these are things that farmers should already be doing. We're not proposing to increase the regulatory burden on farmers here. What we're doing is seeking to consolidate the existing legislation and make it easier for farmers to understand what's required of them under the law. So, I think it's important to understand that the scheme sits above regulation, but the second chapter really does deal with the structure of the scheme and those three layers of actions that farmers could undertake. And clearly, when farmers are looking at these actions, and I know you're going to go into more detail when you're talking about the next chapter, one of the areas which is missing in this document is there's no payment rates, there's no indication of what level of reward they're likely to receive for compliance and participation in those various levels. What's the situation? When will we know a little bit more about what is the potential income streams available by the scheme? Thanks, Aled. Yeah, and I know some of the call will no doubt be a bit disappointed that we don't include the payment rates in this publication. What we have proposed is that in, I think it's in chapter four, is a baseline payment will be made to farmers for undertaking the universal actions we propose in the scheme. So that's a baseline payment on a perhectorage basis for undertaking the universal actions. What we're now in the process of doing is developing the base for what that payment will be. So effectively looking at each of the actions that will form part of the universal layer, understanding where there are costs for farmers to be involved, that we understand what those costs might be, understanding if there are any elements of income foregone we might need to take into consideration, but crucially also understanding the social value of the outcomes that farmers will deliver as well through delivery of those actions. So what we're doing now for our evidence programme is developing really, if you like, a payment rate in exchange for the universal actions, which will recognise all the activity that farmers would have to undertake to go into the scheme. And I do recognise it's disappointing that's not in this document, but equally I think it was important we put out our proposals as they stand for what the actions that we'll ask farmers to do at the same time as continuing to develop the work to model those payment rates, because we've got to get it right. We've got to represent value for money for the taxpayer and the design of the scheme, but also we want to incentivise farmers to come into the scheme. So getting the payment rights right in exchange for delivery of those universal actions has been critical. So our proposal on that is to consult on the payment rates at the same time as we consult on the final scheme next year. So there will be more details on that in the form of a formal consultation in 2023. Brilliant. Thank you, James, for clarifying that point. I can see there's a lot of questions, so I'm keen to go make progress on the document so we can try to answer all the very valid questions which are flowing through 28 in total and well over 100 in attendance as well, which is fantastic. So James, the scheme framework, I know you wanted to pick out some actions to talk through some examples, and particularly the one around 10% recovery, I think would be one that our attendees would be keen to hear your views on. Yeah, sure. I think I won't be able to do justice to this chapter because of a huge amount of policy development and evidence that sits underneath each and every one of the actions that are covered in the scheme document. But I think what I might do is just pick out a couple of the universal actions just to explain a little bit about our thinking behind them and how they sit generally, I guess, in terms of the scheme framework. I hope people on the call have recognised that there's a multitude of different things that we're asking farms to do for the scheme. I'll just pick out a couple maybe to begin with. One of the universal actions is to make best use of artificial fertiliser through nutrient management and soil testing, and this is an action ready to design to support farmers to undertake a range of soil testing on their farm. We think this is really important from a resource efficiency perspective, so helping farmers get really good information around their soils. We think it's something that a lot of farmers are already doing. We know through Farming Connect that there's a significant amount of support already provided for farmers for soil testing, and we think it will enable farmers to make better informed decisions where they're not already doing it about different land management practices, and particularly the application of artificial fertiliser. We also, from that action, think that we can point or signpost if you like farmers to optional actions in the scheme, which might benefit and support them to achieve a positive outcome in relation to their MPK usage, for example. It's a good example for us of an action which we know many farmers are already undertaking. I think there's a wealth of evidence out there which supports the benefit to the farm business of undertaking nutrient management and soil testing, and we believe it needs farmers on a journey, if you like, to undertake additional actions which we can make available in the scheme. That's one type of universal action that we've set out in our proposals. Another one is around managing and optimising farm performance through measuring and monitoring. For us, this is about making sure that we're supporting farmers to be resilient and productive businesses. Again, there's a range of evidence that suggests that the best performing farm businesses have a really good understanding of their costs and their input costs and obviously their margins. What we want to do here is to enable farms to input a simple set of data and then to make again informed decisions by benchmarking that data against key performance indicators for the sector. We want to provide a simple as possible way of farmers for undertaking that, but really, again, it's to give better information to farmers to help them make informed decisions about either things they might want to do through the scheme or things they might want to do in their business generally. Those are two types of actions in the scheme. The tree-clanting one I'll come to next. I think I probably dodge that one for long enough, but there is a universal action in the scheme to create new and manage existing agroforestry in Woodland. The headline, I think, has been around achieving the 10% tree cover in line with the forestry standard. Now, there's a number of things to say around that, and I'll probably just start with the context. The climate emergency is real and it's here. We need to take action to respond to it, and whilst this is one action in the scheme, and there are other actions in the scheme which are designed to help farmers reduce their emissions and indeed to sequester carbon, I'll point back to the action on soil testing there as a kind of avenue for how we can support farmers to sequester carbon in their soil. Tree-clanting is important, and the Welsh Government does have a target which was set by the independent UK Climate Change Committee to plant 43,000 hectares of trees in Wales by 2030. We debated long and hard about how we framed this action, but for us what we want farmers in the scheme to do is to be supported to increase their existing tree cover. I think that's the first thing to say. We're not starting from a zero sum game here. Many farmers already have a good proportion of tree cover on their farms. Our modelling of 8,000 farms would suggest that the average farm in Wales has between 6% and 7% tree cover, so what we'd like farmers to do and what we will support them to do is to first of all manage that existing tree cover and then to come up with a plan to how to achieve 10% on their farm. We really want to do this in a way which integrates, I guess in the land sharing type of approach we want, integrates some forestry into their farm management system. What we've tried to do in the scheme is provide a range of actions which will help farmers achieve the kind of right tree in the right place approach that we advocate in government, and so whether that be creation of riparian buffer strips or whether it be creating shelter belts and a de-shade, particularly relevant in this weather, through integrating it into their farm management system, we'd encourage farmers to look at that and to actively support them to make sure they have the information available to make sure that the trees are going in the right place and support their farm business. We felt it was important to include this as a universal action, not least because of the scale of the climate emergency challenge we face, but also to avoid if you like the risk and something that we get asked about a lot of large-scale land use change in Wales with large scale forestry. The risk, if you like, of farmers being sold to external bodies for large-scale forestry, what we want to do to achieve our targets is to support farmers, existing farmers, to continue farming and producing food, and then also support them through payments and advice to reach our targets. I'd coined this as our land sharing approach and it underpins really all the design thinking that's gone into this. If we can encourage all farmers to, who are part of the scheme, to achieve that 10% tree cover, then the likelihood is that we won't be taking as much land out for large-scale forestry, which I know is a real concern for the community. I think that's probably a summary of some of the actions, and I'm sure there's lots of questions on trees, and we might want to go into that rather than me trying to explain some more, but maybe I'll pause there for a sec. Thank you, George. Just to clarify, the tree cover target of 10%, that includes existing woodland and tree cover. It's not an additional 10% on top of what you already have. That's correct. So maintenance and creation is our mantra here, if you like. So what we want to do is support farmers for maintaining existing tree cover in line with the UK forestry standard, but also support them with a range of options to increase their tree cover to at least 10%. By doing so, if we can incentivise enough farmers to join the scheme, then we're confident that we'll go a long way towards achieving that target of 43,000 hectares of trees in the ground by 2030. We know it's a challenge, but the climate emergency in itself is such a challenge that we need to respond in that regard. And there's a question here. Will the 10% tree cover include trees in hedgerows? So we're working for the detail of that, and I think there's a range of different aspects of what we might need to include. But in summary, yes, I mean, if it's a tree and if it's in a hedgerow and it's managed appropriately, then we look to include it in that 10% target. Other things that we've talked about in the policy team, which might be of interest, so well managed orchards, where they're contributing to tree cover, obviously, but they can obviously generate a crop as well. We'd look to include those in the scheme. As I mentioned, the ability for farmers to create shelter belts, preparing buffer strips, and other actions as well, we'd look to include in that 10% figure. And I'm glad you mentioned orchards because there was a question about fruit trees being included. I'm just going through the Q&A. I know that this has stimulated a lot of questions, and I want to make sure that we cover off all the specifics around this. Bear with me as I just scrolled down. If hedges come towards tree cover, is there a minimum standard to the hedge, double fencing three metres, et cetera? Well, there is an action in the scheme to create and manage hedgerows. The free meter requirement in the scheme is actually an optional action, so there is an optional action in the scheme to go beyond the maintenance of good hedgerows. In essence, many farmers on the call will be quite familiar with the good standards of management that we've already got in relation to hedgerow management cycles. What we'd like to do is encourage farmers to undertake that as part of the scheme, and then, as I say, if they wanted to go far out further, and I think the free meter option and double fencing is one of the options in there, then that would be an option action that we support. And there's a question here. How can tenant farmers where woodland is excluded from the tenancy and are not allowed to grow permanent crops, let alone plant trees, ever hope to qualify for the scheme? Yeah, I mentioned the tenancy working group before, and that's exactly the type of question and challenge that we're going to have to work through in our next phase of testing these proposals. I think we're quite clear that we are going to have to make some exemptions available for the universal actions we propose in the scheme. We know that there will be some covenants or agreements which would prevent some of the actions being undertaken on some farms for a variety of reasons, and that could be that could be relation to a tenancy agreement or it could be, for example, in relation to a triple SI or a special area of conservation and restrictions which might prevent, for example, tree planting there. What we want to do is work through those exemptions, if you like, because we know that not all of the universal actions will be able to be performed by all farmers that we want to incentivise in the scheme. What we'd hope to do, though, is to minimise that. So we do want a set of universal actions that most farmers can undertake, but inevitably we have to recognise that to encourage as many farmers into the scheme as we possibly can, there will inevitably have to be some exemptions for those who just can't achieve it because of restricted covenants on land and other aspects like that. And there's a question here. Will I be able to export my trees and habitat to my neighbour and let him have my payments for them? That's a good question. So it's the active management of the land that we'll be looking at. So I mentioned that we're looking at a whole farm scheme here, so it's the whole farm that is under the active management of the farm business, of the farmer themselves, and the payment will be based on the amount of land in the scheme, as I said, on a perhettrage basement in exchange for the universal actions. You know, I guess might be pointing towards letting arrangements or short-term lets in some of these instances. Well, all land exchange, well, obviously that would be a matter for the individual farmer to consider about whether that would be something they would want to do. But I would say what we've designed the scheme to be is a scheme which recognises the active management of that land. So it wouldn't just be letting the forestry in this example, it would be actually managing the forestry in line with UK standards, which would then help achieve the 10%. Will timber forestry be eligible as a part of the 10% if I take that as commercial woodland? Yes, we do talk about that as being an option. That may well be right for some farm businesses and indeed that could be an expansion or a new enterprise. We do want to create more support for the timber industry in Wales, and if that is something that farmers wanted to undertake to achieve their 10%, then it would be eligible. And there's a point here we made. Not all trees are equally valuable to wildlife. Will you be equating broadleaf with coniferous trees? Yeah, so again, I think what we're trying to do here is provide a range of options to enable farmers to make informed decisions around that right tree, right place approach, but also crucially what's right for their business. In the habitat action, which talks about creating and supporting habitat, we recognise there will be some overlap between that universal action and the tree planting action. So, for example, established broadleaf trees already in the ground I think for a period of, I think it's 12 years, my policy colleagues will no doubt correct me if I'm wrong. That would count towards habitat as well, whereas some other forms of trees wouldn't count towards that habitat target as well. So again, we're very much keen to explore the detail of those kind of overlaps between the scheme actions through this period of co-design. And there's a question here from a potential applicant that might be a cross-border farmer. If you're cross-border, will the 10% requirement affect the whole farm or just 10% of your Welsh land? Yeah, again, a really good question and one that we want to tease out through our next phase of co-design. In summary, one of our challenges is we can only support agricultural activity in Wales and that means land in Wales. So, we do recognise that poses some particular challenges for cross-border farmers in terms of how they manage their holding. We'd like to work through some of those challenges as part of co-design and, of course, it may be an area that we have to consider exemptions where there is obviously activity in relation to some of those universal actions happening over the side of the border, which we can't recognise because it's happening in England, but which mean it would be impractical for a farmer to do activity on this side of the border, if you like, in line with the universal actions. So, it's exactly the type of point of detail that we need to work through the next stage of co-design. And there's a question here. If new trees are planted to meet the 10% requirement, can they also be sold into the carbon market? So, any credits generated from that planting could those be sold? So, I think, first of all, we'd encourage farmers to seek to achieve net zero themselves before selling their carbon credits. One of the parts of the scheme that we haven't gone on to yet is around a carbon assessment we'd like farmers to undertake as part of entry to the scheme. So, I think it's really important that farmers understand what their own position is in relation to carbon before they do enter that market and they carefully consider the sale of those carbon credits. We're looking to reward, obviously, farmers for taking actions to achieve these actions if they then did decide to do something in relation to selling those credits. That would be a farm business decision. It's a pretty complex environment, though, but I would strongly advocate that farmers seek to achieve net zero on their own farm business before potentially selling credits elsewhere. And I know that the tree question is generating a lot of questions, James. We'll take one more, then I think we'll move on and then come back to some of the questions which are coming through. But there is one comment here from one of the participants saying that they feel that possibly the tree, the hedgerow point, hasn't been answered fully and due normal height of width hedges counters woodland, is there more clarity you can offer on that, James? So, I think in summary, no, they don't. They integrating trees into hedgerows would we would count that towards tree cover. As I said, there is a universal action around the maintenance of existing hedgerows, which we will support farmers to undertake. But in essence, hedges are not trees. And finally, just before we move on to some other actions, the universal actions, am I writing a thing, you've got to comply with all of them in order to qualify for the payment. There's no option within universal. Yeah, so that's our starting point. So we'd like all farmers to undertake the universal actions that we propose in the scheme. As I say, if you're looking for a summary of that, that's right at the back of the document, the last two pages, we summarise what those actions are. We do recognise there will be some exemptions needed, and I discussed the exemption around tenancy as an example a moment ago. And I think those are where there are restricted covenants on the land, which prevent the active farmer undertaking specific activity on the land, which would prevent their entry to the scheme, if you like, because they can't undertake the action, then we will look to design a range of exemptions around those. But our starting point really is that all farmers should seek to undertake the universal actions. Thank you. James, by all means, pick out some more options and more examples within chapter four, if you want to, and then when you're ready, move on to the scheme process in chapter five, and then we'll come back to some more questions in just a moment. Possibly just a couple more. In terms of the universal actions, there's a universal action around the animal health improvement cycle. And again, we know many farmers are already undertaking this on a voluntary basis, and good husbandry practices have been undertaken in relation to their management of livestock. But what we really want to do is embed that into the scheme and support farmers to work closely with their vet on animal health and welfare, and again, as I say, reward them for doing so. So a different type of universal action, if you like, to the ones we've talked about before, but again, one that we think is integral to some of the principles I set out at the beginning about what we want farmers to do to produce food sustainably, high production standards, and supporting good standards of animal health and welfare. So a different type of example that we see in the universal actions, but again, one that we want to support farmers to undertake in the future. And then just maybe just to pick out an optional action. There is, you know, as I say, there is a range of optional actions in there, which we've hoped we hope will provide, you know, something for everyone really, you know, some opportunities for farmers to think about, you know, going further than what the universal requirements of the scheme will be, and which might suit their farm business. But, you know, a couple which I think have got, you know, a little bit of coverage in the last couple of weeks are some of the opportunities around horticulture particularly and how we can support farmers perhaps to do some more mixed farming approaches and or diversify into more horticultural practices. And I think for me that also ties into what I was saying about, you know, the potential for collaborative actions as well. So, you know, thinking about this in a, from a place-based perspective, are there opportunities for farmers to work together in terms of creating co-ops and diversifying some of their farm business into that space? So, I mean, that's one of many examples, but it's one that's just gathered quite a lot of attention in the last week. So, I thought I'd just highlight it now. There's a couple of questions around livestock and there's one here. How does the aim of getting farmers to breed cattle at younger ages and finishing lamb and beef animals earlier fit with incentivising traditional native breeds which tend to have much slower maturing? Yeah, that's a good question. And that's a bit of my wheelhouse of expertise, I'm afraid. So, we might have to pick that up in our FAQ. We haven't specifically put an action in there around the age and the finishing life cycle of livestock. What we have tried to do as I mentioned is to try and give farmers an opportunity and support through things like the animal health improvement cycle to work with their vet to undertake actions on a farm which suit their farm practice and their farm business. And we want to support farmers to undertake that, but I know that misses a question a little bit. So, I'll undertake to provide a response to that when I've spoken to the policy team. Thanks, James. Do you want to talk about the scheme process or any other for the points before we wrap up this chapter? I know there's more questions, but let's... Yeah, maybe if I just talk a little bit about process. So, we can obviously come back to... I can see there's 60 questions now. So, we've got plenty to cover perhaps in the second half of the conversation. But yeah, I'll just pick out a few highlights from, if you like, the process chapter. We did think it was important to explain how we saw farmers both entering the scheme and what it would be like for a farmer in the scheme. So, first of all, the eligibility criteria. We've published our proposals on that. So, you know, and I hope everyone on the call can see this is very much designed around an active farmer. So, a farmer who was undertaking agriculture activities, we will define what we mean by agriculture activities in the bill. But in essence, what we're talking about is, you know, a farmer who can perform the universal actions in the scheme. So, you know, the range of 12 actions that I've talked about already. We've talked about eligibility being based on three hectares of land, and obviously that land being in Wales as well. And again, this is trying to make the scheme accessible to all different types of farm in Wales across all regions. And, you know, we'd be very interested, I think, through our co-design process in hearing any feedback on the criteria. The second bit about the process I just wanted to touch about on was the sustainability review. I think it's fair to say this is one area that we have really taken on board some of the criticism, if you like, from our previous consultations and some of the fears expressed by the industry about the, you know, the potential bureaucracy and challenge this might present to farmers. So, we have tried to, you know, recast our thinking on what this sustainability review is all about. We think it's about, you know, farmers, you know, basic farm information, which, you know, we as government already hold in many regards in relation to farmers who are currently part of one of our support schemes, and making sure that we have good accurate data on those farm businesses. And we also think it's about supporting farmers to undertake a baseline carbon and habitat review as part of entry to the scheme. And I think that's important for, you know, many reasons, but primarily because it will provide the farmer themselves really good information about where their farm is in relation to carbon and habitat. It'll also provide them with information about, you know, the opportunities that the scheme will provide them and, you know, help them make informed decisions on what they might want to undertake as part of the scheme. And crucially, it's really important information for government because it, you know, will provide the baseline of entry to the scheme. We'd want to, you know, every five years, we'd want to reassess the performance and the delivery of the scheme so we can assess, you know, are we delivering value for money for taxpayers? You know, are we making and achieving our targets in relation to the climate and nature emergencies? So whilst, you know, we've refined our proposals around this sustainability review, you know, I think we do recognise, you know, that it will, it will be something that will require some farmers, you know, particularly who might not be already undertaking, for example, a carbon assessment to do work like that. But what we want to do really over the next couple of years is support farmers in the best way we can to prepare for those assessments so we can hit the ground running with the scheme. I'll just pick out perhaps, we talked about payment already, so I might just talk about monitoring and evaluation. We're really keen, I think, again through this period of co-design and what will follow, you know, a final decision on the scheme to understand the best ways of making sure that we can verify the actions are undertaken and also we can support farmers, if you like, to report and evaluate on what's working in the scheme and what might not be. So we're looking effectively at a kind of combination of using technology to support us in our monitoring and evaluation, you know, farmer information and the provision of information from farmers to support in terms of the monitoring of the scheme and wherever possible, some minimising of, you know, boots on ground for one of a better word, to evaluate the performance of the scheme and to verify the payments. We're really keen to kind of work through our universal actions in terms of the best way of doing that. I'm really keen, I think, to look at things like, as I say, technology, which could perhaps support both the farmer and government to making that as an efficient process as possible. I'll probably just maybe just come back to one point on payment, which I possibly miss. So, you know, one thing that we want to do is to provide farmers with, as I say, the optional actions for the scheme and a question that we've been asked quite a lot is, will that include capital works for grant availability? And yes, it is my summary there. So, there are a range of optional actions we propose in the scheme where the support that we might provide to a farmer would be through provision of a grant or a capital grant for infrastructure. So, I realise I missed that earlier, I'm sorry. So, I'll probably just come back to that. Brilliant. Thank you, James. And Farming Connect is mentioned quite a lot of times in that scheme process and providing support on all the various stages. How do you see the role of Farming Connect in the future? Yeah, thanks, Aled. Yeah. So, we see Farming Connect having a key role really as being the government's advisory service and support service for farmers in the future. So, what we will be doing, if you like Farming Connect is the Welsh government brand for advice at the moment, what we will be doing is repositioning the support provided through Farming Connect to support farmers in terms of their entry into the scheme, the information, the knowledge transfer, the continuous professional development that they undertake as part of that entry to the scheme. So, I think the current contract for Farming Connect was met something like seven years ago. You know, we're obviously moving into a new phase of what we're going to want that service to provide. So, we're keen, I think, again to refocus the support that's provided through Farming Connect and direct it towards helping farmers achieve the outcomes that we want from the scheme. Thank you, James. I can see there are some questions around the piloting. So, that leads us quite nicely to talk about the transition and then we can go through all the questions that we haven't addressed so far and I'm sure there's more to come up to 68 at the moment. So, does that lead us quite nicely, James, to talk about the final chapter, chapter six on the transition? Yeah, absolutely. I think, yeah, probably useful to finish the walkthrough and then we can get into, you know, what looks like a really good, a good range of questions, excuse me. So, we've put a couple of things in here which I think it's worth highlighting. First of all, we talk about what will happen between now and the 1st of April 2025. So, we're calling that period, you know, our prepare and pilot period, if you like. So, what we want to do is to help prepare farmers for the scheme and, you know, publication of that, this document, the process of co-design that I've talked about. They are deliberate, you know, decisions to help prepare farmers for what the scheme will look like in 2025. We also want to do, as I said, some work around supporting them with things like the carbon assessment and habitat reviews over the next couple of years. So, you know, the more of that that we can do in the next couple of years, the more we can support farmers to be ready to enter the scheme in 2025. And we want to pilot some of the various aspects of the scheme as well, pilot some of the processes, and pilot some of the actions as well to ensure that they're delivering the types of outcomes that we're seeking. And part of that, again, is really part of it. I was going to say part of this co-design process. We want to test, if you like, the deliverability and practicality of what's in the scheme on the ground and we want to work with farmers to test that over the next couple of years. And we'll do that partly through the support already being provided for through Farmer Connect. And, you know, we'd look to Farmer Connect to provide support to do that over the next couple of years, but also through the £227 million pounds of domestic funding that the minister announced in April as support for the rural sector. What we'd like to do is use some of that money if you'd like to prepare farmers for entry to the scheme and to pilot some of the processes. So, very much our focus in the next couple of years is there. The second part of the chapter talks about transition and this is, if you like, transition out of the basic payment scheme, the EU Common Agricultural Policy scheme into the sustainable farming scheme. And we've proposed in the document a transition period that starts on the 1st of April 25 and ends on the 31st of March 29, a multi-year transition phase to encourage and incentivise farmers into the scheme, whilst at the same time recognising that we don't want to create a financial cliff edge for any farmer actually who's currently receiving support. So, we've committed to ensuring that stability payment will be a feature of the scheme during the transition period, so right through that transition period, so that we can avoid any financial cliff edges. Again, we'll consult on our final proposals for that in 2023 alongside the final scheme and alongside the payment rates. So, I think that really covers the transition chapter and I think what we try to do here is to give as much certainty as we can about what government intends to do over the next, you know, over the next seven years in essence. So, it's, you know, I do recognise it's quite a long-term plan. And, you know, there is an absolute commitment there to providing more detail and information, particularly about payments, as I said, in the consultation next year. You mentioned certainty there, a certainty around the BPS for this year and 2023, that the new scheme is intended to start in 2025. It leaves a bit of a question mark about 2024. Is there any budget certainty for 2024? Yeah, so we do have an indicative budget for 2024, which has been published, and, you know, that is still an indicative budget because it has to be voted through by the Senate for this year's budget has been. Minister was keen to give that certainty to farmers in what are really uncertain times. And, you know, I guess it's in contrast to, you know, what might be happening over the border in England, particularly at the moment with, you know, reductions in BPS payments currently ranging from 20 to 40%. You know, we think it was the right thing to do. We've taken a Made in Wales approach to this policy. We're designing a whole farm scheme as opposed to some, you know, a different approach. They're taking England, designing free schemes and multiple entry points. And we thought it would provide that stability and our opportunity to talk to farmers and co-design, if you like, the next stage of our proposal. So, we recognise there's a gap at the moment in 2024. You know, we haven't provided advice and haven't had a conversation with the Minister about what we might want to do there. You know, there is a lot going on at the moment, of course, in relation to prices and the need for stability wherever possible, particularly in relation to the agriculture sector. So, you know, we will be talking to the Minister about that in the near future. And, you know, we'll hopefully confirm an approach to that, you know, certainly this year, I would hope. Brilliant. Thank you very much. And I just want to now pick up on some of the questions. Great to see so much interaction on the Q&A. So, Diolch yn fawr iawn. Thank you very much to everybody who's asking questions. We are going to try and get through as much of them as we can now. And thank you, James, for going through the walkthrough. What is a 70-page document trying to get through as much as we can over the past hour or so? Right, there is. Bear with me. We've covered off a lot of the tree questions, but I want to pick up on a few here. Bear with me just a second so I can try and make sure we haven't missed any. There was one about piloting and how soon is that going to begin? And how are you going to select the farms to take part in that process? Yeah, so some of the pilot schemes are already well underway in development. So, I hate to come back to tree planting, but we will be introducing or launching a small woodland creation scheme in the near future. And it's exactly that type of thing that we want to do to pilot the types of approaches we talked about in the scheme documents. So, that will be open to farmers. So, those who want to participate in it, it will be dependent on budgets in terms of selection process. So, for each of these schemes, there will be criteria that are assessed against. But, for those interested, we'd like to make available if you like as much as we can in that regard. So, that's one example. For me, one of the key things we want to, as I said, to prepare and support farmers for is the carbon and habitat review assessments that I've talked about as part of the sustainability review. I don't think we'll be kicking that work off until the next financial year, so after April 2023. But what we really want to do there is to ensure that we have a mechanism for supporting farmers to undertake those assessments, which is practical. So, we'll be looking for a good number of farmers to contribute to that. But, again, what we'll look to do is to open up selection criteria to that and publish that so that farmers can understand if it's right for them. Thank you. There's a question here about the 10% target for semi-natural habitat. What is it? What things, in terms of what sorts of things you're asking farmers to do, is in essence the question? Okay. So, in many ways, again, this is, you know, I've talked about the habitat baseline review. What we would like to do is understand the extent, the type and the quality of habitat in Wales as part of that review. And then, you know, obviously support farmers to manage the existing habitat on their land that's been identified through that review. And so, you know, focusing first on the priority habitat or bringing habitat under management, where it's in a SSI or special area of conservation and has an active management plan, we'd like to support farms to do that. You know, and if that achieved the 10%, then great, you know, where and there will be a number of farms in Wales that obviously where that is possible, they already are managing habitat, priority habitat and are managing it in a good way and we want to support them to continue doing that. Where it's not, there's a specific scheme action about different things. Again, you know, similar to the trees in many ways, different things that a farmer could undertake, options they could undertake if you like to create semi-natural habitats. So, the type of intervention we're talking about there is hay meadows. We're talking about wildflowers. We're talking about beetle banks. We're talking about using margins of field to create new habitat. Again, this is where I think the review is really important. So, to understand the opportunity on the individual farm and also to, you know, to give options if you like, for what different farmers might want to undertake in that regard. So, there's a number of kind of options in there that we've kind of set out in the document, but they're not exhaustive. You know, there will be a range of different things that a farmer could undertake to achieve those targets. Thank you, Joes. We're jumping about a bit in terms of question topics here, because I'm just scanning down the list, but I know you can handle it, Joes. Is there a list publicly available of all the stakeholders that have been consulted up until now? Yes. So, I think I'm right in saying that on our free consultations that each of them would have included a consultation response in a report, and that would have listed those stakeholders who responded. You know, as I say, we, as part of our, you know, regular engagement with stakeholders, we meet with, you know, various organisations around Wales on a very regular basis. So, I don't think we actually have a list of that, but those who have formally responded to consultations, they would, I believe, they'll be published on our website. There's a quote here in one of the questions. Farmers will contribute to our target for 30% of land, excuse me, to be protected for nature by 2030. Does this mean you'll be asking farmers to put in another 10% on top of the 20% for trees and habitat? No. So, the two universal actions in the scheme, and recognising there may be some overlap between those, as we've talked about already, the two universal actions is one for 10% tree cover, so maintenance of existing tree cover and creation of new where it's below 10%, maintenance of habitat where it's below 10% creation of new. So, those are the two actions we wouldn't be asking for another 10%. Thank you, James. There's a focus on establishing herbal lays according to one of the participants' questions. There's a focus on establishing herbal lays understandably, but shouldn't permanent lays which don't need to be plowed and receded be equally rewarded for their species' diversity appropriate to that particular area, or reward them for setting seed and flowering, which is why the herbal lays are rewarded? Many areas are restricted in receding due to EIA requirements. Yeah, again, probably a little bit outside my comfort zone and expertise in relation to permanent lays, I'm afraid. My senses that may well be something that we would reward through the scheme where, as you say, where it does create habitat or it does support some of the outcomes that we'd want to see, for example, no bare soil. So, my senses that is something that I probably will have to plead the fifth there and respond to that question in the Q&A just to check with the policy team. Yeah, that's fine. There's a question here, what would Welsh Government's advice be on given the unprecedented pressure on spiralling costs currently, what should farmers prioritise? The cost of meeting NVZ regulations or the potential cost of meeting the requirements of this new scheme? Well, I'd say this scheme is about providing support to farmers. So, this is a payment that we're proposing to make to farmers for undertaking the actions in a scheme. It's voluntary in that sense, and we need to make sure that the payment rate that we set incentivises farmers to participate in the scheme, because we're only going to get the outcomes that we want as government if farmers want to come in the scheme. So, we have to get the balance right, if you like, between incentivising farmer participation in the scheme and agreement to undertake the actions that we're asking them to undertake and the value for money perspective in relation to the use of public money. So, I think for me, it's about what we need to do is present a scheme that farmers want to be part of, that they can recognise the support, the long-term support that we can provide to farm businesses from a regular income stream from government. We talked about multi-year up to five-year contracts as part of the scheme, which could be a significant source of farm income. We've talked about things that farmers might want to go beyond, if you like, in terms of optional actions that we think will be good to support their business to be resilient and productive as well. So, you know, I wouldn't see this as an overhead to farmers. I would say this is an opportunity for farmers personally, because this is about creating a scheme which will support the actions that many are already undertaking. And link to the issue about spiralling input costs. There's a question here that's in the comments. It's great to see farmers will be supported to grow crops which lower the amount of feed they buy in. How will the scheme support farms to grow such crops for use on other farms in Wales? If one farm doesn't have land suitable for growing such crops, how could the scheme support collaborative approaches between farms, so one that can grow could be supported to supply another that cannot? Yeah, well, I think the word there is collaboration and we very deliberately designed the collaborative layer to be fairly flexible so that we can look at, you know, proposals that are coming from farmers, which will enable exactly that type of collaboration to take account of. I mean, we want to encourage farm businesses to operate within the natural capacity of their land. You know, and I think, you know, understanding the dynamics, if you like, particularly between farms who, you know, probably border or are very close to bordering each other. I think, you know, the opportunity for collaboration could be significant there, so we deliberately kind of kept those kind of questions open in terms of what might be the right support to provide for collaboration. And as I talked about into that supply chain question, if you like, you know, we do recognise that could be interventional landscape scale in terms of specific land management practice, but it could also be working together to produce food for a local market, et cetera, to go into a production. And I think I hope there's enough in the scheme that people can see the opportunities for collaboration as well as undertaking individual actions for their farm business. There's a question here which touches upon the situation should a farmer decide not to participate. What's the government's position for farmers that choose not to enter the scheme? Yeah, so I mean, I'm sure there will be some. We want to, as I said, incentivise participation in the scheme. You know, the delivery of outcomes is dependent on farmers joining the scheme. For those farmers who don't, of course, we've said we'll phase out the basic payment scheme from the period 2025 to 2029. So, you know, there will be no basic payment scheme in Wales we propose after 31 March 2029. You know, those farm businesses therefore who currently receive payment through that scheme would not be receiving it in the future thereafter. But you know, as I say for me, it's more about incentivising farmers into the scheme, making it worth their while from a financial perspective to support them to be resilient and productive businesses and recognising actually that there's a whole range of different actions in the scheme that we think will support the farm business to be economically resilient rather than, you know, saying that we don't want farmers to be in the scheme because it'll save the government money. That's not what we're about. We're about trying to encourage farmers to produce food sustainably because we recognise its importance to our nation and the rural communities in which farms serve alongside taking action against the climate nature emergencies. And following on from your point about financial incentives is a question here that although we are waiting the economic analysis which will inform the payment rates, are you confident that even if the overall scheme budget whatever it ends up being will be sufficient to support the 12 universal actions and have significant funds to support the optional and collaborative levels layers as well? Yeah, it's a really good question. It's important. I think that we go back to the evidence here. So what, you know, and it's a really important part of our job in government is to be providing evidence about the use of public money. So I think we've got a really robust evidence base now that supports the universal actions and indeed all the actions that we propose in this scheme document. And we know that, you know, there's a huge opportunity for the sector in Wales to play, you know, a significant contribution against our climate and nature emergency. So really, I think what I'm trying to say is, you know, if we can make a really robust argument for supporting farmers through this scheme by justifying the cost of those interventions that we're proposing in the scheme and demonstrating how it's supporting Welsh society and taxpayers in tackling, you know, the number one priority for this government, then I think we've got a really good case to say, well, this is a budget that's going to be required to do that. Now, you know, that, you know, like in any other budget settlement, that'll be up in competition against, you know, a budget for the health service, a budget for education, a budget for local government. But for me, and in many ways, the job of my team is to provide that really robust evidence for the continued support that's provided by government because we recognise that, you know, the difference the sector can make in relation to the climate and nature emergencies. Now, my next question takes us slightly off scheme. This is in relation to the regulatory baseline, the national minimum standards you referred to earlier. There's a question here. When do you hope to consult on the national minimum standards? Yeah, so I probably, if people on the call haven't had a chance to see it yet, we did publish our proposals for national minimum standards in the agriculture white paper. So we have already consulted on our proposals for those standards. As I say, this is not about increasing the regulatory burden, it's about simplifying and making it proportionate. The existing domestic regulation for agriculture in Wales is about understanding that it's a quite a complex mix of EU and UK legislation at the moment and creating a simpler set of standards around it. So we have already consulted on that. It was in our white paper in 2020. You couldn't, you know, that's available again on our website if you want to have a look at the, firstly, the consultation and also the government's response to the consultation. Thank you, James. There's a specific question here regarding the carnivide ponies. Will farmers looking after rare carnivide ponies be rewarded for their work as a part of the new scheme? That's probably a level of detail we haven't got to on our scheme design yet, I expect. But again, we'll take that question away, I think, particularly to respond to it through a later Q&A if that's okay. There's a question about the compliance and enforcement of the scheme. I know there's a lot of mention about proportionality in scheme penalties in the document. To what extent has that process been developed? Is it right to assume the question as here? There's a system of advisory notes followed by enforcement action followed by court action for severe breaches. So how well advanced is your thinking around monitoring and managing potential breaches? Yeah, I get a really good question and I probably failed to mention this, but what will be supporting farmers for undertaking is the action that they've agreed as part either universal action or optional action. And we recognise that there may be then circumstances outside the farmers control which would not deliver the outcome that we're seeking. So, for example, extreme weather could be a reason why, whilst the farmers undertake and done their bit, if you like, of undertaking the thing that we wanted, they're prevented from doing it by circumstances outside the control. And in those cases, obviously, we would continue to support the farmer because they've undertaken what they've agreed to undertake. We want to have a proportionate system in relation to penalties. And again, this is understanding that we want farmers to be part of the scheme and feel comfortable delivering the actions as part of that scheme. Essentially, it won't be tied to the law, so it would be very unlikely that we'd be taking court action unless there was some kind of fraudulent claim or something coming through the scheme. What we'd want to do, I think, is work with farmers to understand the difficulties in discharging any actions they've agreed to undertake or where they haven't been able to, rather than having this slightly punitive system of payment and clawback just to agree with farmers a variation to the contract. So, for example, if you're looking at a five-year contract, we know that things might change from a farm business perspective in the five years. I think every year we want to do some basic verification with the farmer around the land under control, the types of actions they've undertaken, the monitoring of those actions. And it may be that when we look ahead then to the next year, that the farmer themselves may want to make some changes because they recognise that the world has changed for them or their priorities may have changed. So, we want to make sure that within a long-term commitment, if you like, to undertake these actions, there is some flexibility for both parties. But I think scheme penalties may be necessary where obviously very small proportion of farmers who are in the scheme may not undertake the actions and therefore shouldn't really be paying them for them. The document also mentions testing soils, James, but for nitrogen and carbon. There's a question saying this is expensive. So, is the Welsh Government going to pay for the costs? Would we have to get every field tested? And what is the point of testing for nitrogen, which is very changeable? Good question. The action is to undertake soil testing. We have got to do a proportionality check here, both from a farm business perspective and also from a Government perspective, in terms of how many parcels of land would we ask a farmer to undertake. I think that's one of the types of questions we'd want to go through in co-design. There are also different ways of testing and some are slightly more challenging than others. So, I think again, we'd want to test the best way of asking farmers to undertake or discharge this universal action. But yeah, it is something that we'd look to support farmers to through the scheme. So, we will be building in the cost of that testing, if you like, to the baseline payment that we've made farmers. So, we recognise that there's a benefit to their potentially to the farm business, as well as to the actions that they want to undertake. But we think it's part of supporting farmers to be resilient and productive. So, I think the level of detail we're going to go into there, that's exactly the type of question we want to test in the co-design period process. I should just say on that. So, I don't know if people on the call have registered, but we're actively seeking people to sign up for co-design now. So, if you are interested, I'm sure one of my colleagues will post a link about how to sign up for co-design. We'd really welcome your thoughts and we'll be running surveys, interviews and workshops over the summer and autumn period to encourage people's views and to seek feedback on precisely that type of question. And there's been a lot of questions around the soil testing and I suspect this is something that's going to be picked up in detail in the FAQs and more information to follow. There's a question here about the length of contracts on offer, particularly in relation to some of the actions around tree planting and tree management might necessarily be 50 years or more. How will the Welsh Government support actions, which are potentially very long term, for the contracts, you know, presumably are three or five years? Yeah, so we've taught, we've proposed a maximum kind of length for contracts of five years as part of these proposals, as part of the scheme publication proposals. And we're aiming really there to get a bit of flexibility for the, you know, so when I say a five year contract, I think what we mean by that is, you know, as I just talked about, some flexibility within that five year period to recognise that things may change, you know. So, for example, the land under active management might change because of a, you know, a new parcel land being taken on by the farmer or released by the farmer, well, we'd want to reflect that in the contract. We'd want to reflect, I think, a schedule of actions which we agree with the farmer to undertake over that period. So, you know, we don't expect farmers to have planted the 10% of trees on day one. We expect that to take place during the period of that five year contract. And we also would want to, you know, wherever possible enable farm businesses to come in and say, well, actually, you know, there might be some other optional actions that I can now undertake on my farm business, say, three years into a contract. And so seek a variation to go further or to gain some government support through that. And I think we think that's about right. I think, you know, obviously, there are, you know, I think there are arguments both ways about whether you have shorter contracts, but we're worried there that, you know, you wouldn't necessarily see the delivery of outcomes. I think there are some problems inherent with longer than five year contracts as well in terms of flexibility that might be presented to farmers. But what we would like to do, I think, is ensure there's enough flexibility in a, say, a five year contract for us to have some variations and for the farmer, you know, to recognise that changes happen and to enable them to reflect that in their agreement with Oashgov. Public access is the topic we're going to tackle next. And there's a question here, why are there no universal actions linked to the management of existing public access and rights of way? Most farms have paths and many existing paths that are either blocked or unusable in breach of statutory duties. Surely this gives a chance to get the network up to scratch as well as enhancing it. I think the answer to that probably lies in the question. I mean, if they are points of access and public access, which is, you know, farmers are under regulation to maintain, then they should be maintained. What we've always said through this scheme is we're not paying farmers or supporting farmers to undertake their regulatory activity, if you like. This is above and beyond that. So there is a specific action in the schema around enhancing access. So, you know, we recognise that, you know, for example removal of styles and installation of different entry gates, for example, or enhancing the kind of experience of by assigning. So that is something that we would want to support through the scheme, but we wouldn't support farmers for undertaking what is also already a statutory requirement of them. Thank you, James. Moving on to young farmers and new entrants. This participant has said there's no mention of any scheme which will be targeting support of young farmers and new entrants explicitly. Is this still on the table? So at this stage, no. The sustainable farmer scheme is our, if you like, our flagship replacement for the basic payment scheme and what we want to do is support farmers, all types of farmers through incentivising participation in the scheme in the future. I think I mentioned at the beginning that we kind of recognise that how do we encourage new entrants or younger farmers into farming practice. I think there's a perennial challenge there. We do want to establish a small working group to look at the specific issue about how the scheme can incentivise or can support, sorry, young farmers into the scheme, recognising really that succession is again a bit of a perennial issue in farming. Sorry, I've got a bit of a frog in my throat. So maybe on to the next question. It's all right, yeah. Moving on to carbon toolkits and there's a question here asking what carbon toolkits will the Welsh Government be using. As many farmers are already monitoring the carbon sequestration on different toolkits and there's various different formulas out there, what is the accepted standard the Welsh Government will be using? Yeah, recognise that and our objective in the scheme is to make this a bit simpler for farmers by saying, well, these are what we want. This is the information we want you to provide and these are the systems that you can use to provide it. I think the farming unions have done a really good piece of work in terms of looking at what's out there on the market already and narrowing down, if you like, the different types of tools that are available to farmers to a smaller selection. So that's all already available. We've undertaken to work with the unions, farming unions over the next couple of years and the Young Farmers Association actually on a process of really understanding how we can get to a position where we have a simple set of requirements for this carbon baseline that we can then go out and either use existing tools or if we need to develop our own to say to all farmers in the scheme, well, here's the tool we recommend you use for the scheme. We think it's proportionate to your needs. If you already have information, this is how you can input that information into this tool and to make it as simple as you can if you like to have that earned recognition through that. So when I said about preparing farmers, that's really the type of work we want to do over the next couple of years. Narrow down that field, make it really clear about exactly what we want the assessment to say and also the tools that we know that can provide that. Yeah, having that industry standard in terms of measuring carbon is something that's coming up in a number of questions. So apologies, we're probably not going to pick up on each and every single one of them, but it is something I'm sure your team are working very hard at looking into. There is one I'd like to pick up on, however, if you are carbon negative on a carbon calculator, why do you still need to have 10% tree cover and interesting take? Congratulations, first of all, for achieving that. I think it's no mean feat. Well, so I think what we would say is we are looking to share the load of the creation of tree cover on a Wales basis. So I mentioned our target around tree covering in Wales 43,000 hectares by 2030. As I say, we want all farmers who participate in the scheme to contribute to that, rather than loading it in certain areas of Wales or loading it in terms of certain farms or indeed leading to large scale land use change, and that's the reason why we've included it as universal action because we want all farmers to undertake it. Yeah, there's a comment and a point made here about net zero is most easily achieved by reducing rumyn at livestock, but methane is a short lived greenhouse gas. Will this be factored into the carbon calculating calculation to prevent livestock farming vanishing from the Welsh landscape? Yeah, I think it does, doesn't it? I mean, I think, you know, as we've talked about, there are many different carbon assessments out there at the moment. You know, some are simpler to undertake, some are more complex. There's a varying degrees of what they're reporting back to farm businesses. I think our job as government is to say, if it's a requirement for us to create a baseline, these are the types of things that we want you to measure. This is the types of information you'll have to input into the carbon, into that carbon assessment, and here's the tool that we'll use to help you provide that. As I say, that's exactly the type of thing I think we want to test over the next couple of years working with the farming unions as well, you know, to develop a carbon assessment for Wales where we can establish a really robust baseline, and then we can measure our progress against that over a number of years. There's a question about the scheme process and application. Will farmers have to use farming connectives for advice to apply for the scheme? Some farmers may be able to do it themselves without the need for support. So, is the farming connect element a mandatory component or an optional support service? Yeah, I think what we've tried to do is to make it as accessible as we can to farmers, recognising that some may need little or no support in undertaking the things we propose as part of that process, and if that's the case, you know, very happy for the farmers to apply based on their own, you know, carbon assessment using the tools we provide and habitat review, verifying the information, that's fine. We've tried to design the scheme so that farmers can undertake as much of that as possible with as minimal support as possible, but I think, you know, we've got to recognise that we're dealing with a, you know, like any society, a spectrum of of the sector that will need more support, and we want to make that available to them. But if a farmer can do it themselves and are confident to do it themselves, then yeah, of course they could apply for the scheme themselves. Now, there's a real sense of ambition in this next question. How confident are you that RPW online can be synchronised with the existing data submission in through EID Cymru, BCMS, Fowl, existing carbon calculated, supermarket contract data requirements, et cetera? This is a big opportunity for more efficient data capture. I couldn't agree more. I think there's a real opportunity here too. We've got to design a system that is useful for government and to the farm business. You know, so what we want to do is capture information and then play it back to, you know, I talked about benchmarking earlier, so if we are capturing information, we then need to be playing play it back to the farmer in a usable way where they're already capturing information. We need to ensure that it's as simple as a, you know, for example, through farm contracts or existing assessments, we need to make it as simple as possible for that data to be inputted into whatever government requirement we wanted. So yeah, I couldn't agree more. I think there's a huge opportunity here for us to develop and refine what is already, I think, a really good online system into something which is, you know, even more beneficial to an individual farmer and also crucial, I think, take some of that bureaucracy out of the kind of monitoring and evaluation as we talked about already. There's a couple of questions about supporting horticultural enterprises. Specifically, the three-hectare limit will still exclude a lot of farms, particularly horticulture, which can be commercially successful with less than a hectare. If you wanted to be open to all farmers, why not have the same eligibility based on evidence of running a commercial business, as was the case with the recent horticulture grants? Yeah, I think, so we want to test that in co-design eligibility particularly, and we do recognise, particularly for horticulture, the three-hectare requirement might be a barrier, so we'd like to explore that more. What we've tried to do in the scheme is to say that of course, if you're a farm of less than three hectares, you could collaborate, you know, so there would be opportunities to collaborate. But, you know, again, really that's probably the one issue that we have been debating long and hard in terms of setting eligibility criteria. We've got to try and find a balance, I think, between encouraging all farm types across all regions in Wales to be entered in the scheme with the administration of what could be a very complex scheme otherwise. But if there are some ideas on eligibility criteria that would enable those very small scale in terms of land mass anyway, horticulture enterprises to participate, we'd really like to hear from you. And following on from that question, there's a specific one around the capacity and capacity within Farming Connect to deliver all the support which is stated within the document. And also, as a follow-on, there's a question saying, why isn't any other service provider being considered? Well, Farming Connect is a Welsh Government brand, so, you know, it's how we brand our support, so it isn't about a particular service provider. As I've said, I think it'll be a very much refocused Farming Connect. You know, there will be, you know, a new contract, if you like, or new contracts that will be let to provide all the support that we need through that service. So it's not about saying it's a particular provider or anything like that, it's about saying, well, as a brand, we think Farming Connect has achieved a lot over recent years. We'd like to continue that brand, but we'd like to change the way that it supports farmers, particularly in relation to entry to the scheme. Yeah, thank you. A couple of questions picking up on the importance of food production and food security. One asking, will farmers be penalised for being intensive? Are you not worried about food security and food production as you are actively encouraging farmers to reduce food production? We live in danger of some predictable times and farmers are warning there's going to be food shortages. So, given the very real pressures we're seeing here and now today, how is that being considered in scheme development? Yeah, very much so. So, what we've tried to do is design, you know, a scheme both for current farmers, but also recognising the need to look after and ensure we do have a sustainable future for the agriculture sector in Wales. And I think, you know, the biggest risk to food security in the medium to long term is the climate emergency. So, you know, we have to take action now if we are to ensure that in 10, 15, 25 years time, given predictions and actually recent weather patterns, that we do have a, you know, a sustainable opportunity for the sector in Wales. So, we're trying to balance, if you like, the needs of the current with the future generation. You know, food production is essential to this scheme. You know, it is a complementary aim to what we're trying to achieve. You know, I think if you look behind some of the headlines in terms of the scheme actions, there is plenty in there which, you know, plenty of actions in there which are designed to support the farm business to produce food in a sustainable manner and make, you know, good decisions to be, support them to be as resource efficient as they can to minimise their both input costs and environmental consequences of any of those input costs as well. So, I think what we've tried to do is take that into consideration of the scheme. I think the food security debate, you know, is obviously brought into sharp focus because of the conflict in the Ukraine, you know, and it is very much in the forefront of ministers minds at the moment, you know, and I think it's been great in Wales that we've maintained stability both this year and next year in terms of the continuation of BPS. I think that's a, you know, that's a real sign of the commitment to supporting the industry in difficult times. The, I guess my question on food security is almost a playback is we've got to be really clear about what we mean by food security. Are we talking about maintaining the status quo in terms of what's produced here in Wales and how the nation in Wales is fed? Or are we talking about moving to a different system of production processing and consumption in the future? And I think, again, there's some opportunities in the scheme and I've talked about mixed farming. We've talked about horticulture a bit. There is an, there are opportunities in this scheme, I think particularly to think about, well, what actually does food security mean in the context of our nation and what we should be producing here? And so we, we're hoping, I think, to provide opportunities for farmers to, to kind of recognise that, if you like, through the scheme by diversifying whilst continuing to, you know, support their main enterprises. So we talk about mixed farming, we talk about horticulture, there's other opportunities in there for optional actions. But now I, I think it's a really important question. It has flown through all of our design principles, as I said, about keeping farmers on the land, recognising the importance of food production to the nation and recognising that we need a strong viable farm business, which is economically viable, I should say, in order to deliver the environmental outcomes that we're seeking as well. It's a very live debate at the moment. I'm sure it's going to come up in a number of conversations you're going to have, then face-to-face conversations as well over the coming weeks and months. Now we're hour and a half into this live session and I'm fed by James. I'm firing questions from all angles at him and he's barely a chance to take a breath. We do have a cut off at eight o'clock, so we'll continue. If you're happy with James, we'll, we'll continue. Absolutely. Work, work our way through the questions, 105 in total, so we may not be able to answer each and every one of them. There is obviously been James's commitment to follow some of up with the policy team and that document is being developed in the coming days as well. So we'll crack on and see if we can fit in as many as we can. So my next question is here looking at larger farms. Will larger farmers be able to claim capital works and grants similar to the FBG, the farm business grant, without the extremely bureaucratic and competitive system that was involved in the FBG, sustainable production grant? There was previously a business turnover cut off for the grants in Wales, but not in England. Yeah, so simple answer really is yes, we will make capital grants available through the scheme. We, you know, in the future we will be collapsing a lot of the existing support mechanisms, FBG, SBG, BPS, I mentioned already, into the scheme essentially. So the scheme will be the main vehicle for the provision of government support and particularly in our optional actions there are a range of things that we would point towards capital grants being available to farmers for. There's a question here, how do you get invited to sit on the panel for tenant farmers? I think you referred to earlier that tenant farmers working group, potentially one of the participants might want to get involved, how can they? So we're talking to stakeholders about the working group, so what we want, you know, so if you are a member of a stakeholder organisation by all means talk to them about your interest in that, but we will, you know, for example, be coming to the farming unions to ask them for some representatives to sit on those working groups. We'll have to keep them fairly small because we need to get into the kind of meat of a number of issues, particularly, you know, for tenancy, for example, access to the scheme and, you know, some of the barriers we've talked about, particularly in relation to potentially tree planting already, but, you know, we're looking for stakeholders really to put forward some names for us to work with in terms of those groups. If you're not a member of those stakeholder organisations please feed your views in through co-design. Thank you. How do intensive livestock units fit into the plan for sustainable farming? Do you recognise intensive sustainability, essentially? Yeah, so I think, again, good question. What we've tried to do is design a scheme that, you know, we hope most farms can enter into. Now, you know, that will be an individual choice for the farm business and the farmer at the end of the day, you know, whether it's right for their business, whether they want to join the scheme. But again, what we try to do is say, well, these are the universal actions we want to deliver through the scheme. This is why we want to deliver it because of the delivery of the outcomes that I've talked about throughout the session. And, you know, if that's right for you and your farm business, we want to incentivise you to join the scheme through, you know, a payment rate which encourages your participation. And I think that's how I'd probably frame it. We've tried to design a scheme which is accessible to all farm types. If you have specific issues, I guess, particularly from an intensive farming perspective around why that might not be the case, then again, you know, we'd like to hear from you through co-design because if we are creating barriers to certain sectors or certain types of farming practice, then we'd like to hear about it. And what about sustainable land management undertaken by non-farmers? For example, small woodland owners? Well, I mean, there is, you know, a range of other support available through government and on our rural programmes, but this is a scheme for farmers, you know, sustainable farming scheme. The actions and the eligibility are designed around farming practices. We've designed it for farmers in mind and what we want to do is support those who are undertaking agricultural activities and also those who can undertake all of the universal actions as we've talked about today. And there's a specific question here about plaster, so this is existing schemes as opposed to new schemes. When do you hope to confirm whether the current plaster advanced, organic and commons contracts will be extended or not to 2024-25? Yeah, again, that's the decision the minister needs to take this year. So again, you know, we've confirmed that they'll be extended to 2023 to give that certainty. Budget settlement was in in April. You know, we've been working hard on the scheme in between now and then, but we do recognise that there's that gap in 24 and into the new scheme at the moment. As soon as we can, we'll get that. We'll be providing advice to the minister and the minister will need to make a decision around that support in 24 and beyond. Thank you. Jumping back now to the sustainable farming scheme and looking at the three layers once again, and in particular, the collaboration layer. There's a question here. Will collaborative projects working with organisations such as public services be supported through this new scheme? For example, wildfire risk management being led and developed with local fire services? Simple answer is yes. We've tried to make the collaborative layer as flexible as we can and where there are local initiatives which would support the community aspect, if you like, of sustainable land management and safety would certainly be one of those. And yes, we would want to support those types of initiatives. I think that for us, collaboration is about bringing in perhaps, as you've said, for other parties into that, working with the farmer to deliver outcomes by different types of farm management practice, but absolutely, I think we would look at opportunities for collaboration from a community perspective as much as a habitat perspective or a food production perspective. And there's an offer here from a group of interested farmers and landowners covering 500 acres in Montgomeryshire. Can we apply to act as a pilot group for the collaborative option? If so, who do we contact? So we will be opening a replacement, if you like, for our sustainable management scheme. I believe later this year it's going to be called our Integrated Nature Recovery Scheme, Natural Resources, NRS anyway, and it will be through that process again that we would like to pilot some of the interventions in the collaborative layer of the scheme as we propose it. Again, and it would be through that that you would apply for entry into that scheme as part of a pilot. Maybe I can provide in a bit of Q&A a bit more detail about when people can expect to see that coming live. There's a question here. Has any consideration been given to how the scheme might interact with the forthcoming community food strategy and a commitment to increase the amount of locally produced food entering the supply chain for schools and to help with the commitment on universal free school meals? So more local food on the public plate. Does this fit in? Yes, I think it does. Again, playing to that point I made actually a moment ago in a different context around community, but also collaboration. I think we would encourage that type of collaboration between farm businesses to supply into, for example, public sector contracts. If we can encourage collaboration through that downstream supply chain then that could well lead to support for food produced locally being on plates locally. Beyond that, I guess it's the type of thing we're talking about in terms of extending opportunities for diversification. So opportunities for more mixed farming approaches or diversification into horticulture, which may again play into that local market opportunity. We'd actively try and seek to support that through the scheme and some of the actions in the scheme. There's an interesting question here about payment rates and whether annual payment rates might fluctuate with rising costs. So if you set payment rates at the beginning of the contract and the cost of fulfilling some of those actions increase outside the farmer's control during that three or five year term, whatever it is, will payments shift to reflect that or will they be set at a level? We haven't made a decision on that yet, but I think it's fair to say we will have to review payment rates periodically, particularly as you say in relation to potential costs of various actions and what we're asking the farmer to undertake. So no decision on that, but we do know we will have to review payment rates as part of the scheme, as part of the evaluation of the scheme every period. There's a question here linking with the carbon offsetting. Will carbon offsetting schemes in the future be banned from gaining financially from the sustainable farming scheme? Try to tackle some of the issues possibly around large corporations buying up farmland for that purpose? Well, I think one of the things, and this is, we'd love to get some views on this, one of the ways that we try to frame the scheme is as a farming scheme. So we think it would largely prevent those large corporations buying farmland for a forestation from entry for this layer of government support. But again, we really welcome views on whether we're achieving that goal, if you like, through our eligibility criteria and how we've set the universal actions to be largely related to farm practice. So really interested for views there. But yeah, I mean we want to support farmers I think is the bottom line here and we want to transition from the existing systems of EU support and the common agricultural policy and the basic payment scheme into this scheme in the future. And as I've said a couple of times, we want to incentivise that. So making sure the payment rates reward the farmer for the things that they're doing and support them to undertake the actions is kind of our, you know, it's kind of the purpose of the scheme and how we've designed it. Interesting to me following on on the tree planting option, also an option as a universal action I should say, is the infrastructure in place to provide a large number of sapling trees needed in time for this and will the price be capped or left to the open market? Yeah, that's a really important point to think. And there are probably a couple of areas of the scheme where capacity we recognise there may be an issue. And again, one of the reasons for publishing the scheme details now is to, you know, is to prepare the industry in the wider sense actually for the change that may be coming over the course of the next decade. But yeah, certainly we're talking to our colleagues in our forestry policy branch about the need for saplings to be in order to discharge the actions in order to meet the targets that we've talked about as part of this session. So yeah, I think capacity as a general point is is a really is really important, both in terms of, you know, things like saplings, but also in terms of, you know, access to the right information and support that we need to give farmers through the scheme. And again, by publishing the proposals now, we hope that, you know, the wider sector, so beyond the farm gate, can think about what they might, you know, helpfully provide and support farmers for in the future as well. Thank you, James. Many of us are not eligible for small environmental grants due to mapping restrictions. They also don't result in revenue, which is particularly challenging for tenants. For those of us who want to do more for nature now, why is there nothing that can be rewarded for until at least 2025? Well, I mean, we've always had a number of schemes that have been available over over, you know, various years, environmental schemes. I'm not sure about what the particular, you know, eligibility restrictions were for the for the persons who posted the question, but, you know, would be interested in finding out a bit more about that. As I've talked about, I, you know, we will be looking to prepare and pilot farmers over the next couple of years. So I've talked about a couple of the types of schemes that we're looking to introduce already. So I talked about the collaborative scheme. I've talked about the tree planting scheme. You know, there will be more things that we would want farmers to participate in. Each of those will have criteria, of course, and, you know, be open to applicants to apply for those. But, you know, we are looking to open up effectively as many of the actions in the scheme as we can in advance of it. Not least to test their, as I said, deliverability and practicality, but also to start delivering some of those outcomes there. Well, I guess that the point that's possibly within that question is farmers who want to engage in Glaston for the very first time can't do so because no new contracts are being offered. Yeah, I think that's a very fair point. And, you know, particularly thinking about what support is offered between now and 2025, that's, I go back to, you know, we will look to introduce schemes between now and then, which will help us transition into the sustainable farming scheme. So I've given a couple of examples today. You know, there's more in the pipeline, but, you know, we've got to manage that against an existing, you know, the budget, of course, and, you know, the commitments that are already in place for things around Glaston contracts, which, you know, in many cases a multi-year. What is the thinking starting the transition three months into the new year, i.e. the first of April 2025? Would it not be easier for all-round for the transition to start on the first of January 26 and follow the calendar year? Yeah, good question. Something we've debated actually quite a little bit in terms of our transition proposals. I mean, the simple reason is that that's how Government financial years work. So we can effectively understand what the budget will be, the government will have in the financial year from the first of April to the 31st of March. And then we can open up the scheme accordingly to that budget rather than calendar years, which would be spanning every calendar year, they'd be spanning two budget periods. And therefore we think we can provide greater certainty by aligning the scheme to the financial year. And there's a question here about the, that's a contractual question possibly around what happens in the event of an emergency or natural disaster. If you lose your output, for example, newly planted trees might be lost to fire or drive to disease, insurance currently do not cover for the costs of restocking up to the age of 10 years. We're predicted to have more climatic variations leading to drought disease and wildfire. How does the contract potentially deal with those situations? Yeah, so what we've said is we'll pay farmers for undertaking the actions. And so, in short, we would have agreed with the farmer that they'll undertake this action. They've undertaken the action and then something has happened which has prevented it delivering the desired outcome. It could be one of any of those reasons. What we wouldn't do then is penalise the farmer because recognising that is entirely outside of their control. So, we need to have some, of course, some rules in terms of a contract in relation to the good use of public money. But at the same time, I think recognising we're farmers, they've done what we've asked them to do as part of that contract. They've discharged it and then events have prevented that from the delivery of the outcomes. We wouldn't penalise the farmer in that case. A lot of comments have been made and you have time, no doubt, James, to go through them around the 10% and losing productive land. Particularly on food production, a lot of strong views about food security and food production. Is there any reason why, whilst the document on one hand does state the importance of maintaining the levels of food production, it's not listed as an outcome under the Sustainable Land Management outcomes, couldn't increase or maintaining, at the very least, the current levels of production being an outcome that needs to be considered? Yeah, I think we don't talk about the climate emergency being an outcome is probably my answer to that. It's an objective of everything we're trying to do in the scheme is produce food sustainably. That's why it's part of our Sustainable Land Management framework and that's why it's a complementary, we see it as a complementary objective to everything that's in that. I think I do take the point about whether it should be a specific outcome and I think that's again something that we probably need to reflect more on in the policy design process. I'd hope people on the call can see the outcomes, for example, around animal health and welfare around resource efficiency as pointing directly towards the types of things that we want to help farmers to achieve, which can and do obviously support the sustainable production of food. I think we'll reflect further on that because we've had that raised a couple of times with us, but what we've tried to do is design a scheme that does support farmers to farm. I think that's fundamentally important coming to it. It's a strong theme coming through in the comments in the Q&A. There's a question here about what happens at the end of the five-year contract. What happens in 2030 potentially when this first five years of the SFS comes to an end? Yeah, good question. I think I mean the first thing to say is we'll obviously at every period we'll want to evaluate the success of the scheme, and that will be from a farmer perspective and also from a government perspective seeing about how we achieve the outcomes we set out, the targets that we want to achieve through the scheme, we've talked about some of those, what's been the impact of the scheme in terms of the economics of rural Wales particularly as well. We want to evaluate the scheme, but in summary I think what we'd like to do is have the sustainable farmer scheme as we see it and standing here today it's easy to say is our scheme for the next generation of farmers, it's the government's flagship support scheme for the next generation and what we'd like to do is see it evolving every perhaps five-year period into what are the next challenges that we want to support the industry with, how do we maintain and encourage and incentivise farmers to continue on the journey if you like towards sustainable land management, how do we recognise a good work that's already been achieved through the scheme and also how do we incentivise different work or new work in the future taking into account advances in technology, et cetera, so perhaps a little aspiration on it will obviously depend on government changes and so on and so forth but what we want to do is to create a sustainable farming scheme for a generation. Now there's a question here, it's sort of challenging the rationale, the benefits of planting trees and I know we've talked a lot about trees but I think it's a point well made that it's worth noting and having your views on James, where is the scientific evidence that a hectare of woodland sequesters more carbon and supports more diverse species than a more productive land with rotational crops and high organic matter using zero-till and other regenerative farming techniques, so you know the point there, there are other techniques that potentially can be just as valuable as planting trees? Yeah absolutely and I would like to think that in the scheme there are plenty of opportunities for farmers both in the universal actions and in the optional actions to undertake many of the techniques you've talked about there in terms of some regen farming practices, I don't think you know this is not about saying trees are more implant important for carbon sequestration than carbon-locked in soils, this is about recognising that we need to do more to achieve net zero and a combination of actions both in terms of you know planting trees in line with some of the targets that have been you know a huge amount of evidence space goes into the Committee on Climate Change's report which has set the targets not just for Wales but across the UK as well you know so a huge range of evidence that supports what we need to do on trees in addition to if you like some of the things we can do to reduce emissions and sequester carbon for example in soils, so I don't think it's a linear you need to do this or you need to do that, we need to do everything we can in government to support the industry achieve net zero and it's a combination of actions that we're proposing through the scheme which include tree planting to help us do that. And my final question on trees James it's about the calculation of that 10% and does the 10% include open mountain and potentially land which you couldn't plant? Yeah another good example of a potential exemption there isn't there so if you know for example there is a particular reason why land cannot be planted on and that as I've said before I think that could be because it relates to you know a triple SI or a special area of conservation or you know a particular area of a national park for example you know we understand that it wouldn't be reasonable then to include that land in that calculation. Brilliant where do farms with stone walls fit just like hedgerows they're important landscape features sometimes will fail to get to 10% without including these really lovely features that the document does refer to heritage and landscape features is this one of the options that you're looking into? Yes I think it is a summary again supporting farmers to maintain good practice already in relation to those historical protected features is something that we do want to encourage through the scheme it is an action in the scheme and where they have it we would want to support them to do it. Thank you James. I think we've covered a lot of the questions apologies to anybody that we haven't directly answered I know there's a lot of chatter and a lot of follow up questions which I'm sure people would want to forward to the department but I just want to have enough time before we wrap things up and close just to just to really pick up on what happens next James there's been a lot of discussion within the two hours we've had here this evening clearly a lot of people will reflect on what's been said views and thoughts and contributions will come to the fore over the coming weeks and there'll be opportunities to do that on a face-to-face level in addition to digitally so over to you James summarise what happens next. Yeah thanks Aled so I think the first thing to say is Royal Welsh show next week I know it's going to be hot but there'll be a lot of people from the Welsh Government there who've been involved in the design of the scheme at various events and obviously at the pavilion so you know anybody on the call who's interested in coming to talk to us about the proposals or following up on any of the questions they've asked in the chat we'd be delighted to see you at the Royal Welsh next week. Of course then we've got the regional agricultural shows and we're going to make sure we have a presence at the key ones around Wales throughout the course of the summer so again you know if you're out and about come and talk to a member of the team. I think more generally I'd really encourage everybody who's interested in following this up further to register for co-design so we will be the first stage of co-design will be to launch our survey which we hope to do in early August that will be sent to everybody who's registered and be encouraging them to complete a survey. Again we'll also do some face-to-face and telephone interviews with those who register for co-design as well so you know again if you come to a show and want to be interviewed as part of that process of co-design we can gather your views on the scheme proposals in that format and then later in the year so probably towards the autumn or early autumn we'd look to run a series of workshops with those who register for co-design so we can test some of the specifics that we talked about in a group and go into a little bit more detail perhaps around some of the proposals that we've covered either in the document or today so you know I really would encourage everyone to register for that. You know we're doing a lot of engagement with stakeholder organisations as I've said particularly through the show season so the team are doing the best to be out and about at various events and gathering so again if you're a member of one of those organisations or just interested in coming along then please do and bring your questions so you know genuinely this is about you know getting the views and feedback from the industry on the proposals these are proposals this is an opportunity to shape those proposals as I said make sure that they work for farmers in Wales that's our intention here in putting them out like this you know and we know there will be some challenges in what we've proposed in the scheme document but we're really keen to get feedback so that we can you know we can design truly a policy for 2025 that does work for the sector that does work for farmers that does kind of recognise the challenges of climate and nature emergency but also crucially keeps farmers farming in Wales and producing food sustainably. Yeah and from the questions we've had tonight James there's been a lot of practical pointers issues potentially that will need to be resolved and trying to understand and apply some of the options and actions which will be set out but as you said there this is a real opportunity to influence the shape of this policy these are simply proposals at this stage it will lead on as you mentioned to a more formal consultation in due course to make the most of of the opportunities to engage into our show next week and other shows and other events of the course of the coming weeks and months well I just want to thank everybody for taking part and taking such an active part in this live event it's been there from the word go the questions have been flowing in well over 118 and also we had a fantastic retention rate a lot of people still online and have been following us for the entire two hours thank you very much for taking such a keen interest in what is an incredibly important policy shaping the future of farming here in Wales for the years to come there will be a document of frequently asked questions available on the Welsh Government website shortly together with a recording this recording simply search sustainable farming scheme on the Welsh Government website so thank you very much once again to James to all the participants and also the technical team that we're helping in the background really appreciate everybody's support. Diolch yn gallw'n effig i gyd, gofyddwch fel y llun oes iawn i'r sioi, wrth gwasanaeth nesaf, rwy'n fawr, nesaf, thank you.