It is not by chance that farming has one of the highest suicide rates. Long hours, lone working and difficult weather and working conditions are a few of the reasons cited.

I got to know Bedfordshire farmers during the single farm payment fiasco created by the Government's classic inability to run a department.

Many farmers were not paid, and banks, having no confidence in the
Government's ability to sort out the mess, would not allow farmers
overdraft facilities.

Those that did allow it charged pernicious rates.
In the House of Commons I told Margaret Beckett that I would walk to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and write the cheques for the money owed to Bedfordshire farmers myself, if it helped!

Every day another farming family throws in the towel as more and more of our agricultural land is built on in response to Government building and growth targets.

Yet we know that there are only nine days' supply of wheat left in the world, the price of rice has doubled in seven weeks, and many countries have banned the export of rice.

The prices of sugar, soya and corn have all rocketed. There were food riots in Haiti at the weekend, and oil is standing at US$110 a barrel; it was $60 three years ago.

England's fields used to be full of wheat and barley. Not any more. If I were a Defra minister, given the present global security environment, I would be looking at ways to make England self-sufficient, as far as is possible, and become less reliant on food imports.

Fields full of crops to make bio-fuels don't fill bellies.

The Asian economies are expanding. China is growing at an
astronomical rate and all countries are consuming more food and energy.

A Government which over ten years has made us more reliant on securing energy, oil and food from abroad has not had its eye on the ball and has left us in a very vulnerable position.

It may conjure up images of 'The Darling Buds Of May' – however, a return to agricultural and dairy farming, to guarantee we can feed those already living in this country, an end to onward immigration, and a declaration that there are only so many people who can live on a small island, may be a good place to start to guarantee food security.