It has never been so important, since our forebears were told to dig for Britain, for every acre of these islands to produce food. Our new Prime Minister needs to unlock our agricultural potential to feed and power the population who are facing a tough winter.

Ms Truss has inherited a country where any political inertia risks leaving people cold and hungry, but she is fortunate that farmers are ready to play their part in getting the country back on track.

If Ms Truss backs the industry, she will soon find agriculture repaying any support handed to it many times over. We are facing an energy crisis which could dwarf the cost of Covid to the exchequer, but here farmers are able to help. Hundreds of farm businesses are ready to invest in renewables if grid connections were made available.

Too often, energy companies quote distant dates and exorbitant fees for connecting up to the national grid, this must change, and fast, if we are to keep the lights and heating on. And we can.

Rising costs on farm are filtering down to rising costs in retailers shops, albeit at a slow rate – too slow some would argue. Nevertheless, the public are going to be in in for a shock at point of sale, with plenty more to come since the vast majority of the northern hemisphere's harvest was produced under last year’s fertiliser prices.

Again, Ms Truss would do well to support farmers to drive efficiency and production to keep the public's fridges full. She is a proven political survivor, so she will be aware of the real-politik mantra that hungry people are seldom happy voters.

Kick in the teeth

Getting established in farming is an uphill struggle with the cost of entry appearing to multiplying for every generation. To discover that ‘new entrants’ are claiming thousands of hectares of entitlements for businesses hundreds of miles from Scotland is disgraceful.

We are blessed with thousands of talented people who work in farming who often want to, but may never get the opportunity to, farm in their own right and to think their taxes are going to fund these sham businesses is a kick in the teeth. The good news is that there were more than 200 claimants to the National Reserve and a lot of them will be coming to the industry with new ideas and drive which benefits us all.

The government needs to ensure that these worthy schemes are targeted effectively on genuine new entrants, which we admit is no easy task. The new schemes being devised at the moment can not have rules which inhibit new farmers, growing businesses or even farmers deciding to step aside to let the next generation take over.

Anyway, this winter our ‘new entrant’ in Islington will have a fair commute to get up to their 1400 ha farm each day if they are feeding cattle on the hill and showing due care and attention to animal welfare.