Since pollsters got the Scottish referendum and General Election result so wrong we have all become distrustful of surveys. 

However, a poll showing that more than 65% of farmers favour exiting the EU must have set alarm bells ringing in the ‘remain camp’. 
 
They must have assumed that because of the funding that comes through the CAP farmers’ support for remaining in the EU could be taken for granted – but what is emerging is a classic head and heart debate.
 
Farmers know the safe decision is to vote ‘Yes’ for the certainty of single farm payments and for the impact on agriculture of pro-farmer lobbying in Brussels. 
 
The alternative is to depend on a UK government, outside the EU, giving the same or better support because it would be paying less to Brussels. The problem with this argument is that there is no certainty
this will happen. 
 
What is on offer is a ‘could’ rather than a ‘would' or 'will’. The alternative heart argument is, however, an indication of how fed up people have become with the red tape of the CAP. 
 
Phil Hogan, the farm commissioner, is doing his best to tackle this – but even he is unable to snip away much of bureaucracy that wraps the CAP, and that is going to be an issue in the referendum.
 
On the heart side of the equation, farmers have a sense that the CAP is not delivering. There is, in the view of many people, a fundamental flaw in trying to make a common policy stretch over 28 member states, with very different farm structures and agricultural industries. 
 
Any suggestion of change is resisted in Brussels, as the EU clings to the CAP being one of its few ‘common’ policies. It is this flaw that is tempting farmers to vote to leave, despite the benefits of single farm
payments.
 
They know this would be a big risk and that they would lose the influence of being linked through the CAP to member states that lobby hard for agriculture. However, their heart still holds out a vision of a better future outside the CAP. 
 
This is why surveys seem to be showing that the 'Yes' vote amongst farmers across the UK is slipping back while the ‘don’t knows’ are moving towards voting to leave.
 
This is a debate where the European Commission and European Parliament are not helping bolster the position of those who believe their future is in the EU. 
 
The pressure on the commission to ban glyphosate, the world’s most widely used herbicide, is a prime example. It is trying to do the right thing by extending the licence, but some MEPs and member states scientists, acting politically rather than scientifically, are making a simple decision hard. 
 
This is a prime example of what turns farmers off control of policy by Brussels.
 
Another example this week is the pressure to finalise a trade deal with the Mercosur countries of South America. These include Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay, and European farming could lose out from the deal being put forward by the commission. 
 
This would improve access to Europe for beef from these countries, undercutting European producers.
 
They would effectively be paying the price for other parts of the EU economy enjoying better access to markets in South America. 
 
The claim is that this would be a nett gain for the wider European economy. But the lobby organisation that represents beef processors in Europe, and COPA representing farmers, have warned that the beef industry would pay a huge price for such a deal. 
 
There is some talk of temporary compensation, but that cannot disguise the fact that key parts of agriculture lose out in trade deals.
 
It would be wrong for the commission to delay sensitive policy announcements for agriculture until after the referendum. This would be to interfere in the politics of a member state, which it cannot do. 
 
However, the penny, or euro cent, needs to drop in Brussels that the CAP, as it stands, is driving farmers into the ‘leave’ camp. They have been given no encouragement that there exists a real determination to change the policy, or to use it to defend European farmers against imports. 
 
Until there is more of a commitment in Brussels to take on board the concerns of those tempted towards a farming future outside the EU, the numbers yielding to that temptation will inevitably grow, because of their intransigence, as we move towards the June 23 vote.