Things have come to something of a head this week, as a range of worries, niggles and concerns finally worm their way out of the backs of our minds and into daylight, fully formed and ferocious.

Top of the heap has to be Boris Johnson’s move to unilaterally alter the UK’s exit agreement with the European Union, unleashing what our Brussels correspondent Richard Wright describes as a torpedo at the already floundering negotiations towards a post-Brexit trade deal.

For his part, the Prime Minister insists he’s just tinkering with detail within the remit of UK law; but his critics say this is final recognition that the arrangements he agreed around Northern Ireland, and the comings and goings of goods across its land border with the EU and its sea border with the rest of the UK, are unworkable.

With the sharp end of Brexit fast approaching, this is not the kind of friction we want to see with our trading partners in Europe, particularly in light of what Quality Meat Scotland had to say this week about how much tariffs imposed on Scotland’s meat exports might hurt.

As the National Sheep Association put it, all the work that is going into developing new trade agreements outside of the EU is all very well, but these cannot replace our trade volumes to the EU in any timescale that farmers can live with.

Closer to home, the longstanding fear that ScotGov’s official policy is to create a hill economy based on trees, rather than livestock, has gained substance in the shape of the recent budgetary announcements flinging money at forestry, while only offering farmers a limited pot of cash to invest in sustainability technology.

Even if one accepts that Scotland could accommodate more trees, NFUS president Andrew McCornick is right to note that the parallel green cash directed at agriculture is no more than a ‘good start’, and that the sector is worthy of so much more help to keep livestock and crops on Scotland’s ground.

We can only back his call for this initial funding to be substantially built upon going forward to help farmers and crofters from all sectors across Scottish agriculture tackle climate change, increase biodiversity and improve water and air quality – whilst still producing good, quality food.

But of all the nightmare scenarios now solidifying out of the mirk, none can raise a shudder as much as the sight of the mighty RHASS holding out its hand for help, under the banner of ‘Save Your Show’.

Now chief executive Alan Laidlaw insists that the show may not actually need ‘saving’ in the conventional ‘in danger of death’ sense, but he has indicated that how it runs for the next few years will be very dependent on what funding can be found to replace revenues lost to the lockdown.

With all that is going on in the world, this is no time for us to have the Scottish agricultural sector’s premier showcase even hinting at failing.

Shoulders to the stone!