We are fortunate that Scotland has the very best agricultural show in the UK. Yesterday had a real buzz about it, peoples heads are not down trying to survive anymore, they are up and looking to a bright future.
The show has it all, superb livestock, all types of machinery, food, clothes, forestry, renewable energy, climate change, agricultural research, education, a new single government agency (Scottish Environment And Rural Services) and much much more besides. A most pleasing sight were the thousands of schoolchildren and a few harassed teachers joyously exploring and learning all about food and agriculture while thinking they were having a fun day out.
I did not agree with some of the stuff on climate change see http://www.macaulay.ac.uk/videos/cc/
It might have helped if they had asked some real experts (me for a start) about what will happen in the future. All of the above scenarios are fanciful at best and do not reflect what farmers are actually doing now and real achievable plans for the future. The vision of rosy cheeked happy communities got right up my snout as one who has actually had to deal with the "community" and deliver real change.
The bankers were smiling, mine anyway, the rest of the economy might be flat but the rural sector in general has a very bright future. We have a government that has the right general idea for the rural areas but still has not got delivery of those ideas particularly the SRDP on track yet. Farmers were smiling even machinery dealers the most notoriously miserable of men couldn't help the odd sly grin. Its great to be a farmer just now.