After a dry spring and probably the hottest summer on record, our farming industry is in trouble.

Barley and wheat farmers say their crops are ripening two weeks earlier than usual and are of poor quality. Last year the average farm income in Scotland fell by 51 per cent to just £35,000 because of the unholy trinity of climate change, high costs and low prices. As the harvest is being brought in this year and the cattle and sheep sales are held, Scotland’s 65,000 farmers and farm workers are wondering how many of them can survive another season.

Although food prices in the shops have risen by over 4 per cent in the last year, not much of that is getting back to the farmers. The supermarkets and middle-men take their share, on average 50 per cent. Meanwhile the cost of seed, fertilizer an

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