So, what are the best- and worst-performing commodities this year? There are various commodity price indices which cover metals and tea, as well as the mainstream “soft” agricultural commodities, but the most recent publication of The Economist magazine does not cover any of the dairy products though this is readily available from several sources.

The worst-performing commodity in the list from the start of this year to mid-October was American beef, which has declined in price by a significant 24% while the best performing has been another core agricultural commodity, sugar, up a large 55% in the same 10-month period. The dairy index alone is up 40% from May to mid-November, so not far below sugar.

The other agricultural commodities were somewhere in between with wheat down in US dollar terms by about 10% (and barley much the same) and grain maize showed no change, helped presumably by the US corn (maize) to ethanol industry, as well as the drought in parts of Brazil which affected sugar and maize production.

The huge gyrations in the price of agricultural commodities pose huge problems for a family farm model that is enshrined in the European model of farming.

This year, we have seen the Commission come up with an imaginative and successful scheme to reduce milk output and to pay farmers for the reduction in production on their individual farms. Are we prepared to go down the same route in relation to the other commodities?

There is a particular difficulty with grains as we are operating at world prices and open to supplies from the world but with the growing realisation that undiluted globalisation has unintended consequences and drawbacks, it may be time to take a more balanced view of what is a sensible form of intervention during a price downturn.