Most of the boys I was at school with in the early 1960's were farmers' sons. I remember them well: tough, good-humoured, keen on sport, with broad local accents and little interest in academic subjects. They all looked forward eagerly to their sixteenth birthday, when they could leave school and help their fathers run the familly farm. Today, few farmers' sons want to stay in farming, and the suicide rate of farmers in their late middle age is one of the highest in the country. What has gone wrong?

Wartime rationing made politicians aware of the need to make the UK self-sufficient in terms of food production. Our farms became the most efficient in Europe. They were supported by social policies, such as the compulsory purchase of milk by the Milk Marketing Board at guaranteed prices, and the provision of free milk to schools. In 1972 the UK joined the Common Market (now the EU). The Common Market's Common Agricultural Policy ("CAP" for short) was designed to protect mainly French peasant farmers. It did this by maintaining prices at a level which would give the smaller French farmer a decent living. The more efficient UK farmers benefitted hugely from this. As a result "wine lakes", "butter mountains" etc. were created.

After 1972, the cost of raw materials, particularly fuel, rose dramatically, and inflation accellerated. Something had to be done to bring prices down - particularly food prices. So the Conservative government, elected in 1979, adopted two important policies, which were not seriously opposed by any other political party.

Firstly, they succeeded in persuading the Common Market countries to "reform" the CAP. The "wine lakes" and "butter mountains" disappeared, and food prices fell. Secondly, they promoted superstores. Central Government "Guidance Notes" were issued to all local planning authorities which made it virtually impossible to refuse planning consent for at least one superstore in every district. Authorities which defied the "guidance" were ordered to pay Planning Inquiry costs, as Ryedale was, when they refused permission for the superstores on Clifton Moor.The immediate consequence was to appear to bring inflation under control and stabilise the pound. Farmers, who had benefitted from the unreformed CAP, found they could take the initial reduction in their income in their stride - particularly as their losses were partly offset by subsidies either to "set aside" land or even to keep it in production. It took many years for superstores to achieve their present 80% monopoly of retail food sales and their consequent stranglehold on the producers.

In 1993 the UK signed the Maastricht Treaty. Until then the European Commission had no power to promulgate EU legislation unless all member states agreed. Maastricht opened the floodgates. Henceforth EU directives would have the force of law if approved by a "qualified majority" of the unelected Council of Ministers, whose meetings are not open to the press or the public. Since then there has been a constant stream of EU legislation. Perhaps most of it is good, but much is unnecessary and expensive and has caused farmers to pay ever increasing sums for what is fondly called "the cost of regulation". Some people think this is a good reason for withdrawing from the EU, but as none of the three major political parties propose to do this, there is an obvious need to curtail the power of the Commission and the Council and make them both democratically accountable.

In many cases, our Whitehall mandarins have made matters worse, by giving EU directives an extravagant gold plating of their own invention. So, for example, a directive was issued requiring the inspection of all animals for slaughter by "veterinarians". Continental "veterinarians" are not the highly qualified animal surgeons who we know in the UK as "vets", but, by analogy with human medicine, their qualification is similar to that of a pharmacist. Nevertheless Whitehall decided to interpret the EU directive as requiring all animals for slaughter to be inspected by our highly qualified and expensive UK vets. The consequent increase in costs forced the closure of many hundreds of small local abbatoirs - a factor which is at least partly responsible for the spread of the current Foot and Mouth epidemic.

Meanwhile, as farm incomes sank, the cost of farm equipment and machinery rocketed well above the rate of inflation, and we now have the market distortion of unfair competition from Euroland, as mentioned in my last article.

So, farmers have had no control over the events which are ruining them. They need our help and support.