Sir, – There's an old tale about an exchange between a minister and one of his congregation.

Looking at John's (the parishioner) immaculate garden, the minister remarked: "You and the good Lord have done a wonderful job, John". To which John responded: "Aye but you should remember whit a mess it was in when he had it a' tae himsel."

According to Messrs Arbuckle's fine volume, 'Farming facts and fake news', yields of oats in the best arable areas peaked at about 60 bushels per acre (about 900kg per acre) in 1918, and several times below the average yield 100 years later.

Your regular letter writer, Angus MacDonald, might like to put religion at the heart of agricultural policy, but it is a tad disingenuous to put all the blame on humanity for 'natural' disasters and let almighty God off the hook when, as we see so often, many innocent lives are cut short all across the spectrum of life.

In any case, we have no real choice but to make food production more efficient. A growing and vocal percentage of the population demand that wildlife and rewilding projects command a greater share of the limited area of land and continental shelf available.

They are not going to be reasonable about this because much of their case (as with the Lynx Trust) is not based on reason, or reliable scientific evidence. Surely the disturbance to the economic world should have shown them that reliance on even more global trading with the burden being borne by the countries least able to bear it cannot have a pleasant outcome.

Sandy Henderson

Faulds Farm,

Braco,

Dunblane.