It’s hard to avoid cliché when it comes to writing about the Ploughing but it is almost true to say that all roads this week led to Screggan, which again hosted the National Ploughing Championships.

Almost, but not entirely, because for farmers trying to salvage grain and forage crops, the way to Tullamore was through the fields, and via the rain on Wednesday which halted work.

For all who travelled on Tuesday, the sense that the eyes and ears of the nation were upon farming was heightened by the sheer number of camera crews, outside broadcast units, and roving microphones wandering around the site.

Many of them spoke of the rural/urban divide but for country folk, the great divide is between dairy farmers and the rest. While the site is full of shiny tillage equipment, it ain’t moving.

While Patrick Donohoe speculates in these pages about the notion of peak ploughing, there’s little argument that we’ve long left peak tillage behind, possibly as long as 25 years ago and certainly since the loss of sugar beet processing in this country.

Any parent knows not to travel to the Ploughing with empty pockets, and it’s the same for politicians.

Minister Michael Creed had a particularly big packet of sweets with him in the form of the €160m worth of payments under the ANC scheme. Commissioner Phil Hogan is due to appear on Thursday morning, and don’t be surprised if he has news of a 70% advance payment of the BPS.

Among the companies present, Glanbia surely had the greatest packet of goodies for their customers.

There has long been an expectation that Glanbia Ireland would try to boost feed sales this year followng the re-integration of agribusiness and GII in Glanbia Ireland. The announcement of a €10/t bonus on feed, essentially a €10/t discount, is matched by a further tenner for co-op members coming from the co-op.

This amounts to a strong laying down of the gauntlet by Glanbia. The long-awaited plc share certificates for co-op members from the spin-out gained in May also landed this week, and the milk bonus is still fresh in the memory.

As one farmer put it: “It might be deeply cynical to announce all this for the Ploughing, and it might be our own money we’re getting back, but it’s still good to get it.”