It says a lot about the state of the economy that an inflation rate for August of 9.9% could be seen as positive.

This is because a double-digit rate was avoided, with the latest figure down marginally on July's 40-year high of 10.1%. A dip, no matter how tiny and irrelevant, may be good news for politicians, but in the real world inflation is still the greatest threat to economic stability.

This is even worse when the UK economy is on the edge of a recession likely to last well into 2023. While the rate may have come off its historic highs, there are cost pressures in the system, linked to energy costs, that will see it rise again as we move into winter.

Inflation is the spectre at the feast right across the EU, but it is not the only cause for gloom for European farmers. In the Netherlands the term 'unstoppable' has been used to describe an avian flu outbreak taking a heavy toll on an industry that is vulnerable because its success lies in intensification in a small geographical area. The Irish Farmers Association said this week that pig farmers have now been losing money for 400 continuous days, with no end in sight for an industry squeezed by costs and falling export demand from China.

The farm lobby organisation COPA has confirmed the impact of this summer's severe drought on cereal crops. It says these were down by almost 7%, but that production of oilseeds and protein crops rose. The fall in cereals was not down to reduced plantings or the diversion of land to other crops, but to the impact of the summer drought on spring crops in particular. The biggest losers were maize and durum wheat; yields of barley were stable and the fall in wheat was around 2.5%.

Overall this left cereal production below the five-year average. COPA says this was a disappointment for farmers in a year that got off to a good start. It says the situation was worsened by price volatility as global markets reacted with huge swings to events in Ukraine. It says this lack of stability along with concerns about fertiliser and other costs make it difficult to forecast planting and production for 2023.

As the evenings draw in and temperatures take on an autumnal feel, the energy problems that lie ahead this winter have become all the more real. The European Commission is still reluctant to impose compulsory rationing of either gas or electricity, but it is getting closer to this if calls for voluntary reductions at peak times are not successful. Rising bills will be effective rationing tools, but the EU president, Ursula von der Leyen, was right when she said this week that an energy crisis can easily become an economic crisis. That will happen if gas and electricity supplies to industry have to be rationed to protect supplies to consumers.

The EU, like the rest of the world, is in a race to buy and ship LPG into storage before prices climb even higher. This is an issue the UK government will have to grasp, because of its dependence on electricity from French nuclear plants. Even if the new prime minister, Liz Truss, backs fracking and North Sea gas extraction, those are solutions that will take years when the problem is already here, thanks to her predecessor's obsession with being greener than the ultra-green EU.

In Europe, the lobby organisations representing the food industry have come together to warn the Commission of the impact of rising energy costs. They say this is affecting the entire food chain, with the impact spreading far beyond gas and electricity direct costs to transport, packaging and labour costs. They say many companies are in danger of having to cease production, because they cannot pass on the full impact of rising costs.

They are warning that ways must be found to ensure food producers can operate in an energy market with greater stability around supply and cost than is the case now. This is part of a campaign to convince Brussels that in a rationing scenario, whether formal or informal, the food industry and the agri-supply sector must be given special treatment.

Their case is strong, in that failure to do this would worsen food security, which since the invasion of Ukraine has climbed to the top of the EU political agenda.