DEAR SIR: As a beef farmer, I was happy with the most recent application for PGI status to Europe for grass-fed beef. Finally, I felt a small step in the right direction – an opportunity to cement our great product that is grass-fed beef.

However, I am astonished with the reaction and backlash that this has brought. In footballing terms, it feels like we are ‘playing the man and not the ball’, creating a lot of confusion and division within the farming community, which is not good, especially when we as farmers and our representatives should be pulling together to support this application, with the upcoming trade talks and the potential fallouts from a no-deal Brexit on the horizon.

Also, with change coming from within Europe in the form of its new Common Agricultural Policy, we may not be fortunate enough to be afforded another opportunity – so why would we be foolish to let this slip by? As a suckler farmer, I am fully in support of this application, even though I finish bulls and won’t benefit from it fully. Like everything in farming, views and methods change and we must not be afraid to change with them.