What are the main challenges for the Welsh agri-food sector over the coming years?
Further to Monmouthshire County Council’s vision to provide local food to local schools an initiative was developed to provide local food for local school children. However, as the initiative unfolded it was quickly recognised that there was a distinct lack of local vegetables being produced in county, although Monmouthshire was successful in providing sufficient quantities of pork and beef (lamb was not cost effective and has been withdrawn from the menu.) As a result the scope of the initiative had to be widened to offer welsh fruit and vegetables to Monmouthshire schools rather than ‘local’. This initiative proved that Monmouthshire is currently unable to produce and therefore provide a varied, healthy diet to feed its local school children. A challenge for Monmouthshire is to encourage more farmers to produce vegetables and look at ways of supporting the local meat production so that it is more accessible and cost effective for local and national consumption. The challenge for the
