Voting for more of the same?

I am going to have to do a great deal of thinking before the weekend when I chair a meeting on "The Future of Scottish Farming". The panel features the great and good from the SNFU, The Scottish Assembly, The Banks, RSABI, UKIP and a noted local firebrand, so I will need to be on my toes.

No doubt all the current issues relating to our industry will be aired. Most will be of immediate concern such as the dismal price of our products, reduced support and thin margins. A longer term concern will be the forthcoming referendum on continuing membership of the EU and the impact of the decision on farming.

I am old enough to remember when we first became members of what was known at the time as The Common Market. Over two centuries, governments of all colours had repeatedly cast farmers adrift on the free market. After seeing the disastrous result of ditching agriculture after the First World War, which resulted in Hitler almost starving us into submission, our politicians changed tack after World War Two and supported our nation's farmers. There was little alternative as food was short worldwide and rationed here. In complete contrast to the dire pre-war situation, my boyhood in the 1950s was a heyday for farming. By the time I started to work in 1964 it was obvious that the kind of war we knew was unlikely to re-occur and, despite the dire warnings of our farming unions, food shortages were over and governments' attitude to farmers hardened. When we joined The Common Market in 1973 everything changed. Farmers were once again wanted.

The question of our continuing membership of the EU is one farmers can't take lightly. Until recently I had almost taken for granted that the referendum would return a strong mandate to stay in Europe. David Cameron would present his twenty four demands. Europe would agree to all but the most preposterous. As a result of his triumphant deal the Yes vote would carry the day.

Things have moved on and the demands have reduced to four as at least twenty would have met certain rejection. The only alternative then would have been resignation or the recommendation that we leave the EU. Immigration and terrorism issues have pushed consideration of the remaining four demands far down the line and time wears on. In a reversal of previous surveys, recent polls have moved the leaving campaign narrowly ahead of those wishing to stay in the EU.

We all know what remaining in the EU means for farmers. Quite simply more of the same. Crazy regulation, ever more red tape and The Basic Farm Payment. Things which drive us nuts but at the same time keep us in business.

Who knows what would happen if we left the EU and the CAP. Specialist consultants Agra Europe have had a stab at it. Their confidential seventy page report on Brexit issued to clients is based on "The Fresh Start" policy document published by The Coalition in 2013 which suggests we move to the free market policies in New Zealand and Australia. Green payments would move from arable to hill farms and tariffs would be slashed, allowing cheap food imports from virtually anywhere. I received the report second hand as it costs £500. This is how it was reported in The Daily Telegraph. "Land prices will crash. 90% of the nation's farmers will be ruined and there will be a wave of debt foreclosures by banks. Discord will be sown between England, Scotland and Wales imperilling The United Kingdom."

No-one, even the most ardent free traders, has suggested that agriculture would be abandoned altogether, however, few believe that our own government would support it to the extent of the CAP. No guarantees have been given. In addition to future financial support, issues such as access to European markets and under what terms, opening the door to cheap and sometimes nasty foreign food and labour availability in a much stricter immigration regime remain to be resolved. Few consider that future governments would let farming collapse, however, history indicates that things would, for us, get tougher. This in a world of supply and demand where most sectors of agriculture at present are struggling to make a profit.

The weather at the start of the month was reported as the mildest in November since 1946. That rang a bell. My parents took the tenancy of the hill farm of Rawburn in 1946. My father had been seriously wounded after D Day and was still in very fragile health. My mother was a Liverpool lass. Their first summer was, like this year, dull and wet with good hay impossible to get.

The autumn was, like this year, exceptionally mild. On January 23 the weather turned and winter set it. My father's handwritten account on paper now brown with age is harrowing. He wrote of unblocking roads with shovels and almost immediately a drift re-blocking them, of men walking miles to get provisions, their feet level with the telephone wires and of the dropping of hay to starving sheep from Liberator bombers. The shepherds tramped out a huge cross. Where the arms crossed they burned old jute sacks to mark the drop zone. The bomb bay doors were opened accidentally on the way to the farm and the loose hay blew hither and thither far from where it was needed.

Our long range forecasters predict the hardest winter for years. They do this every year. Maybe if weather patterns repeat themselves they will be right this time. There was a silver lining, now long forgotten, to the 1947 winter, the snowiest old people then had ever seen and certainly snowier than anything since. The following summer was one of the warmest sunniest ever. There were 1200 fewer lambs than usual on Rawburn to enjoy it. In physical terms it was a catastrophe. Financially the crisis was short-lived. Food was scarce. Farmers were heroes then.