SIR, The year is 2070, and an old man and his grandson are out in what was the countryside.

The old man says: "I can remember this place before it was planted in trees when all you could see was fields, a patchwork of greens, browns, and yellows bordered with hedges."

“What’s a field grandpa?”

It was like the park you play in but with a fence around it – some had grass for sheep and cows, some had crops of cereal and vegetables. I was a farmer, I looked after the land and the animals.

“Grandpa, did they let you out of the city gates to work in the fields?”

No, I lived on the farm. In those days, people lived in the countryside and in villages dotted around.

“Grandpa, what did you do with the cows and vegetables?”

Well, you know the feed cake that gets delivered by the Amazon van every week that we eat? Well, when I was a boy we ate real food, milk from cows, vegetables, bread, lots of things, and these things were grown on the land that’s now covered in trees. “Why did you stop growing food grandpa?”

Well, the government wanted their friends to produce the feed cake instead of the farmers producing food, then the government could decide what was in the feed cake, and they said the feed cake was better for you, though I don’t think it was, but the people eating the food didn’t support the farmers, so the government won.

“Grandpa what happened to the farmers and the fields?”

Well, the government put the farmers into the smart cities, and they sold the land to some big business friends of the government to plant trees on, so no-one could ever grow food again on the land.

“Grandpa, that’s sad,” said the boy, and the old man with a tear in his eye said ‘yes, it is’.

Now this could be the future, but it doesn’t have to be. We can change it, but time and opportunities to change the ending are becoming less, and we must act now.

Matt Drummond, Cassington Farm, Maybole