Those of us who still view Adam West as the quintessential Batman will be well aware that the above fight scene noises were always sprinkled in large and colourful capital letters throughout each episode - with the aim of giving what were, let’s be honest here, pretty tame brawl scenes a bit more punch.

Be he facing the Joker, the Penguin, the Riddler, or Mr Freeze – along with their many minions and henchmen- these cartoon-like additions to the brawl - which were always accompanied by that beloved theme tune - flagged up the fact that the Caped Crusader and his trusty side-kick Robin, the boy wonder, were about to triumph over their adversaries with some good old fashioned fisticuffs mixed in with the odd Judo throw.

So I found myself wondering if we might be in for a bit of a revival - and maybe a return to the sort of simpler days when we knew who were the good guys and who were the baddies - when I picked up on a somewhat hidden “CBAM!” in last week’s SF.

Sadly, though, my enthusiasm was soon curbed when I read on to discover that, rather than an enhancement to a juicy punch-up at Westminster’s Treasury department, CBAM was little more than the latest in a long line of acronyms that we’ll need to get used to.

Standing for the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, CBAM might at the first hearing have sounded like a good idea for the health of the farming industry, the sort of thing which should have taken into account the more climate-friendly production processes we use in this country when compared with the far higher greenhouse gas emissions of many of our overseas competitors.

And, indeed, the idea is that CBAM will be a levy set to be placed on imported goods by the UK Treasury from 2027 onwards. The aim will be to take some account of the carbon emissions generated during the production of imported goods - and the inequality between the carbon price in the country of origin and on our own shores – with the aim of reducing “carbon leakage” and the displacement of domestic production by more carbon intensive foreign produce.

Now that might sound like a good idea for those of us who are convinced that our production systems are amongst the most climate friendly in the world – and there’s a good deal of evidence to back that belief up.

Even the independent Climate Change Committee warned the UK government that steps would need to be taken to level the playing field if UK farmers were required to adopt environmental practices which would add costs and hence put them at a competitive disadvantage – otherwise the floodgates would be opened to a sea of cheap imports.

However it would appear that the CBAM will not be levied on goods like grain, beef, or sheepmeat at all – and powers that be have decided that it will be focused on “carbon intensive” products - and, contrary to the impression which you might be given almost daily on the news, that doesn’t include food and farm produce!

No – but, more than a little worrying for the grain and crop growing sector, one of the big ticket items which will be affected by this new border tax will be imported fertiliser.

There’s no avoiding the fact that the Haber Bosch process which is used to produce our N-based bagged fertilisers is an extremely energy hungry one. And, to be honest, even the so-called “green fertilisers” which use renewable power rather than fossil fuels are a bit of a con until all our power comes from that sector – as they simply displace those renewable resources from being used elsewhere.

But with the imposition of this new import levy coming at a time when the lights have been turned out and the plug pulled on the UK’s last major domestic fertiliser production plant, I found myself thinking that it might be time to fire up the Bat signal searchlight. And it seems that this view might be shared by the English NFU who have expressed their own fears on the announcement in recent weeks.

Their chief economic adviser said that although the proposal was only revealed recently, it was crucial that engagement was made with officials at the Treasury at the earliest opportunity to understand fully what was being proposed.

“The cost of producing food has been soaring and putting many farmers and growers under immense pressure. Measures such as the CBAM which target decarbonisation of parts of the economy must ensure they do not undermine the sustainable transition of our domestic food system,” he said.

The union fears that any import levy will drive up prices for the fertilisers which everyone knows are a crucial input that helps British farmers and growers produce food for the nation.

And by pushing our costs up even further, the move has the potential to undermine the competitiveness of domestic food production against imported food which is produced using cheaper and potentially less sustainable inputs that are not subject to an equivalent carbon tax m- yet which look set to escape the CBAM.

So, in effect, it looks like rather than the CBAM being a tool that might help level the playing field for the farming sector, it’s being used as one to dig an even deeper hole for us to stand in.

Rather perversely, given the stated aims of Brexit, the UK’s CBAM proposals follow on the coat-tails of a similar set of plans drawn up in the EU which will apply to foreign competitors unless they enforce comparable measures to lower emissions on the industries covered by the levy.

However, in Europe too, the final deal which will phased in from 2026 has been strongly lambasted by EU agrifood stakeholders, who were also highly critical of the decision to include fertilisers.

“This inclusion will make the price skyrocket further, increasing the cost of agricultural production in Europe, whilst making the use of imported food more competitive and attractive,” according to the EU farmers’ association COPA-COGECA.

They claim this ‘double penalty’ for farmers would be ‘unbearable’, considering the current price of fertilisers, which still stands at historically high levels since Russia’s aggression in Ukraine.

But back on home soil though, I’m sure that lobbying bodies must be growing weary of explaining to Government that so many of their half-baked schemes haven’t been properly thought through - and will, as the result of possibly unintended consequences, risk displacing domestic food production with bargain basement imports of less sustainable food products which probably fall well behind on other production standards as well.

But maybe I’m being too generous – and we’re just being too slow to realise that cheap imports and the good old race to the bottom are all that Westminster is really interested in.

For, once again it’s clear that they’ve taken what might have been an opportunity to help UK farmers by levelling up the economic playing field through some sort of tax on imported foods with a higher carbon footprint - and turned it into a stick with which to beat us down yet again, while offering nothing in the way of compensation for all the additional costs which are being piled upon the industry.

It’s almost as if there’s some evil genius behind the plan. Where’s Batman when you need him?