Sir, – A few weeks ago I commented on the systems that have enslaved farmers were crumbling before our very eyes, little could we have realised how quickly they have collapsed.

At every farm kitchen table in Scotland, families will be discussing how they are going to survive, difficult decisions will need to be made with the utmost urgency! The increase in our costs will overwhelm us – forget 7% headline inflation, think 50, 100 and even 200% rise in our costs.

That is unsustainable for any business and it may not just be the farmer making these decisions, no doubt a bank manager will be part of the debate.

Retailers, processors and governments need to wake up and smell the coffee. The decisions we will make in the coming days will dramatically affect the availability of food and all the financially controlled sectors, ie milk, beef, poultry, potatoes, soft fruit, pigs and vegetables need to see an immediate lift in their prices to allow them half a chance to survive.

The notion that some producers must supply their farm accounts to their processors to allow the processor to judge if a price increase is needed, is as inappropriate as it is offensive, particularly in present circumstances. This is a real time catastrophe and needs real time actions!

Governments also need to change their thinking – and quickly. In an ideal world, all the candy floss thinking may get by but, tragically, the world is not ideal and Scotland's actions are not going to save the planet.

All Scotland can do now is save herself and try and protect her people. Fracking must be fast-tracked and every available resource must be mobilised, from the opening of the Cambo oil field, through to compulsory use of bio solids on the land, a natural resource that can be utilised instantly. This may offend the delicate sensibilities of the farm assurance brigade, but hunger will have a sobering effect on the the most ardent eco warier.

This is not scare mongering. This is fact, this is here and this is now. We need action and it has to be now.

It's not just Mr Putin who has his finger on the red button, the people who conspire to manipulate and control our markets must see, if they make the wrong call, it will decimate our society as effectively as a nuclear bomb, and, ironically, like Mr Putin, it will destroy them too!

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