Minister pedals benefit of renewable energy

Welsh Assembly rural affairs minister Carwyn Jones demonstrated his green credentials at the show by backing environmental schemes and plugging renewable energy.

Mr Jones took to a bike to generate electricity as part of the World Wildlife Fund’s Climate Challenge Campaign.

The minister shed his jacket and tie and went head to head with – and beat – Morgan Parry, WWF’s Wales director, to raise awareness of alternative, renewable, more environmentally friendly ways of making electricity.

“Tackling climate change is a central theme in the Welsh assembly government’s environmental strategy,” the minister claimed.

The challenge demonstrated the benefits of eco-friendly cycling as a means of transport, and that fossil fuels were not the only source of energy.

In a competition between the two rival Welsh farming unions, Huw Thomas, NFU Cymru’s Welsh Assembly adviser, generated more power than Arwyn Owen, the FUW’s director of agricultural policy.