DEAR SIR:

How appropriate is it that the British taxpayer now has to find €40bn to compensate the EU for UK commitments made during 45 years of membership? And that is only the start of it. The British taxpayer now also has to find another €5bn a year to replace the EU annual payments to UK farmers.

There are few countries on the planet, less able, or prepared, to feed their people than the United Kingdom. At least that’s the record for the last 400+ years. Worse still, all the signs are that this malady is set to continue ad infinitum.

The latest annual report (2016) from the UK Department of Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA ) is very clear and comprehensive. It certainly makes very scary reading. But is anybody in Theresa May’s cabinet taking any notice of the DEFRA’s frightening statistics?

Practically every essential metric confirms that UK farming is in terminal decline for years. For example, wheat production is down 13% and the value of the wheat crop is down 21%.

The value of UK milk production is down 11%. Agricultural productivity is down 2.3%. UK farm income is down 7.5%. Soil nitrogen balance is down 21%. Soil phosphate balance is down 47%.

Potash soil balances are also seriously down, but apparently potash is down so bad that the exact percentage fall is not given. The UK trade gap in food and beverages widened by 4.2%.