"The worst year out of my 50 years in the business" is how John Campbell of Glenrath Farms has described the past 12 months as an egg producer, as an oversupply of eggs clashed head on with the rising cost of feed.

Has this been the worst year of your farming life? Who's to blame? And wherein lies the solution?

We cheerfully accept that larger units with lower margins are the way to make a better living, while mostly ignoring that the smaller the margin, the quicker it can go negative. With a few hens and selling eggs directly, I'm never going to make a fortune, but equally even with a string of disasters coming along in convoy, I'm never going to lose a fortune either. The larger the unit, and the smaller the margins, the larger the risk, and that's often forgotten.

Bernie Matthews was often attacked, and I have to say he was a cantankerous old git sometimes, but he had nerves of steel, and at one stage had three complete years worth of turkey production in freezer store waiting for the price to rise sufficiently for him to sell at a profit. How many of us would dare do that? The price did come up again, and that rise heralded his largest expansionary period, but it could very easily have been bankruptcy and the end of his business.

Nice observations 2658336! I went to a biodynamic farm last weekend and was struck by two things. First, the farming couple seemed to make a reasonable living from just 2000 hens, partly down to the fact they were achieving a 90% lay and were selling the eggs for £4.50 a dozen. Second, there is more to life than money, and the job satisfaction they were getting from doing things "their way" was immeasurable.