David's Digest

As an arable farmer it's difficult to know what to say to those who keep livestock except that you have my deepest sympathy.

It hasn't exactly been a vintage year for crops, what with the spring drought and the summer deluge but at least prices have risen to help compensate. However, arable problems pale into insignificance beside Foot & Mouth, Blue Tongue and in case you'd forgotten, Avian Flu, all in a few months.

This year's catalogue of farming problems has been of Biblical proportions and you wonder what might happen next. What makes it worse is the helplessness we all feel and not knowing what to do to make it better. If ever there was a time for the whole of agriculture to stick together and try to help one another this must be it.