As the clock strikes midnight and the brand new 2023 is ushered in, few people will regret the end of 2022.

It has been a year that in its early months saw the start of the war in Ukraine, moved into unsustainable cost increases for farmers and ended with the UK economy heading into recession and with inflation and strikes at levels not seen since the 1970s.

For anyone that remembers a decade before that, it is reminiscent of the satirical television programme, That Was the Week that Was, which shot David Frost to fame. The theme, as sung by Millicent Martin, with the lyrics 'It's over let it go'. That is how people will see the end of2022 – sadly, confidence that 2023 will be any better is not high.

On a positive note for 2022, it was a year when weather conditions were relatively kind in farming. It was, as I remember one farmer saying, a year for the most part when it was a pleasure to farm if you did not have to think about costs.

Scotland avoided the worst of the drought that devastated much of Europe, cutting cereal and other crop yields and leaving a hangover that affected autumn planting.

In the wider political world it was a year of tumultuous events. War in Europe became a reality and it turned Russia from being a once respected member of the then G8 group of leading economies into a pariah state.

In a few short months the world, and Europe in particular, had to go cold turkey on surviving without one of its biggest commodity sources and export markets.

This time last year, when we were optimistic about a new year finally free of Covid restrictions, few would have guessed the scale of Russian aggression in Ukraine – and it is from that aggression that everything making 2022 a year to be forgotten has flowed.

The problems in agriculture are familiar. Across all enterprises farmers were squeezed by rising costs for fuel, feed and of course fertiliser. Labour became difficult on farms and in food processing, because the block on free movement of labour after Brexit robbed the industry of easy access to willing staff from EU member states.

Farmers have also suffered the same relentless cost increases as other consumers in the face of falling incomes. The core problem, however, remains the rising cost of the major inputs, coupled with the weakness of farmers to pass those higher costs up the supply chain.

There has been a mixed response by retailers between commodities, but there is no escape from the reality that farmers have been squeezed by rising costs.

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Optimism comes from believing positives can emerge from negatives. Indeed, it has been said that farmers' greatest asset is a short memory for bad times and relentless optimism the future will be better.

This is how they cope with weather and disease, but when it comes to being a victim of global politics that theory comes under strain. Food prices have rocketed on supermarket shelves.

This, of course, is the subject of the moment, although now eclipsed by strikes and the problems of the NHS. Hopefully, now that people have got as used as they can be to higher food prices they will find a new respect for food and how it is produced.

This would allow prices to move onto a new, higher plateau and end the era of farmers producing food below the cost of production.

If anything good comes out of the inflationary mess of 2022 it will hopefully be a more realistic understanding by consumers of the costs associated with producing quality food.

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At an EU and global level, food security shot up the agenda in 2022, securing a political focus not seen since the 1950s, when it helped lead to the creation of the then EEC. This was positive for agriculture, but as the year ends there are already signs this key issue is losing its political might.

Consumers are accepting assurances from the European Commission that farm production will not be an issue in Europe and have chosen to live with issues around affordability.

Green issues have been allowed to dominate the debate about the future of food security. For farmers, this looks set to become another negative of 2022 – that they came so close to securing a fundamental change of approach but had it snatched away by the fashionable but questionable conviction that green policies can deliver food security.