I DON’T know much about horses. Occasionally. I jump on one of my daughters’ wee ponies in a show of bravado.

The poor things can just about carry me, but after a gentle, terrifying canter up the dens and much mockery from the girls, that’s me for another six months – until I forget how traumatised I was the last time.

When you sweat more than your pony, it’s a good sign that it’s not for you. Particularly when it’s out of fear.

My great, great grandfather, James Gray, was made of sterner stuff. A notable breeder of Clydesdales from Birkenwood, in the Carse of Stirling, he was a frequent prizewinner at the Highland Show and his horses sold all over the country and even as far afield as Canada and the US.

When he was in his prime early in the 20th century, there were more than a million horses working on farms in the UK, so he was effectively one of many tractor dealers. Just like the machines that replaced them, all those four-legged tractors needed a lot of fuel.

I have a photo in my office of all the working horses and sturdy ploughmen on my farm from this period, about 1920.

East Scryne is about 350 acres and had five pairs of working horses plus probably a couple more for orra jobs. My neighbour, Tom Hay, tells me a horse would need about 40 pounds of hay and eight pounds of oats per day when working, so all the horses on East Scryne would need around 63 (Imperial) tons of hay and nine tons of oats per year. Yields then being less than today, I have allowed for 2 tons per acre of hay and 1 ton per acre of oats which, when combined with summer grazing, comes to around 45 acres or 13% of the farm producing fuel.

And that’s before you count all the food that went towards the numerous farm workers, plus all of the oats that were sold to feed other peoples’ horses. The total amount of the farm given over to energy crops must have been at least 15%.

So, I think it is worth remembering that our forebears would have been very comfortable with growing fuel crops, and we should not get too het up about land producing them today. Whether it is rapeseed oil for biodiesel, wood for biomass burners or rye for anaerobic digestion, I’m all for it – provided it is sustainable.

The world may well need more food, but we are running businesses, not charities, and our first duty is to make a profit.

Most of what we grow in Scotland is bulky and has to be transported down south at great expense. On the other hand, there is an increasing demand for energy, which can be used right here.

Another great, great, great grandson of James Gray has recently been filling two huge silage pits with rye for the new AD plant which has been built on the next door farm. He tells me yields are very good – between 40-44 tonnes/ha and the payment to the grower is £25/tonne.

The waste from the plant will be returned to the rye fields it came from for a spreading charge. Apparently, the cost of production is very low and I ought to think about growing some.

The one worrying development from the AD plant is that the operators are no longer going to accept grass silage into the plant as it is not as productive as rye.

This might well be the case, but in terms of a good break and soil improver, grass is a much better option than rye. Not so many of us are keen to keep cattle any more and it seems to me that AD is an alternative way for the less masochistic among us to have grass in the rotation.

Yet another great, great grandson (the old chap was clearly not just a breeder of horses, and quite a few of his descendants farm in these parts) is not so keen on all this rye because it might mean less land for him to grow broccoli on.

Either way, I think it’s healthy to see a bit of competitive lobbying for land, and another cropping option has appeared which could possibly improve returns for farmers in the district.

Talking of lobbying, forgive me for making a plea on behalf of NFUS. They are working their socks off at the moment arguing your case with the Scottish and UK governments to try and get a coherent agriculture policy that works for all sectors of Scottish agriculture for the brave new world ahead of us.

It is a Herculean task, not least because there are many other lobbying groups out there with deep pockets who will have a different vision of the countryside than us.

Whatever they achieve in our name will affect us all for the next decade at least. The problem is they are working on a very tight budget, which is a fraction of what it should be because only about half of us are members.

If you are not already a member, please consider joining. At a time like this, you can’t afford not to.

I’m not saying it’s easy, but here are five reasons we should never, ever under any circumstances complain about or even mention the weather. After this, I promise never to mention it again.

* We have a largely justified reputation as weather whingers and it just takes one ill-advised, vague reference to the adverse conditions to perpetuate this.

* This is Scotland. We grew up here. We knew the weather was frequently miserable when we took the job. If we don’t like it, we should move to Canada where they have proper weather.

* Our weather may be boring, but at least it’s not existential – thanks to my mother, I have a lot of South African cousins farming in the Eastern Cape, and a couple of weeks ago they had a huge fire in their district that burnt 30,000 ha of grassland just before lambing. A few days after the fire, they had a foot of snow.

* It’s a bit counter intuitive, but the worse the weather is and the smaller our crops are, the more likely they are to be worth something. This one only applies to potato growers.

* You can’t do anything about it – worry about the things you can change.

Happy harvest one and all!