“I think farmers are perhaps not the best people to run a business” says Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affair

Welsh Conservatives are calling for the Cabinet Secretary for Environment and Rural Affairs to make an immediate apology following comments made in a plenary debate where she said that farmers are “not the best people to run a business.”

The comments, made by Labour AM Lesley Griffiths on the 22^nd of June, are likely to cause a great deal of offense to Wales’ farming community which has 14,000 registered businesses in Wales and generates a £5.7bn annual turnover.

They were made in response to a question about the Welsh Government’s Rural Development Plan, which now two years into being has produced limited results, despite promises from the previous Minister for Farming and Food that the plan would have a “transformational” effect on the rural economy.

Speaking inside the Senedd Chamber, Lesley Griffiths AM said:

“We do need to see much more of a transformational change, and we need to do that in partnership with the farmers [.] I also think we need to look at how we can help them with the sustainability and the resilience of their businesses, and to look at the business side of it, because I think farmers, certainly in my very early discussions with them, are perhaps not the best people to run a business. They haven’t that kind of business perspective…” (22 June 2016)

Speaking today outside the Senedd Chamber, leader of the Welsh Conservatives Andrew RT Davies said:

“I call on the Cabinet Secretary to make an immediate apology to the farming community of Wales, who will no doubt be taken aback by her comments.

“Farmers in Wales contribute billions to the Welsh economy – they directly employ 48,000 people and are among the most industrious and entrepreneurial members of our business community.

“To say that ‘farmers are not the best people to run a business’ is not only highly offensive but calls into question whether she is in fact the right person to take this brief forward. It simply betrays her ignorance of this vital artery of the Welsh economy.

“I would suggest that the Cabinet Secretary takes some time to reflect on her ill-considered comments and would invite her to meet with a number of my friends who run highly successful farming businesses.”