It is wars and trade policy that set the environment for farmer wellbeing. Productivity gains are important, but in a sector where we are all in competition with each other while dealing with large suppliers for our input needs, and large processors to handle our outputs, our bargaining power is limited.

If, as individuals, we do not track the latest technology developments, we slowly go broke.

Wheat prices on the pivotal Chicago Board of Trade market are this week 30% above last year’s levels.

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This increase is not because of dramatically reduced world production, but because of wars in Ukraine and Iran restricting immediate supply. The same happened, but in a much more extreme way. in 2022. Whenever basic food prices rise, the cry goes up about food taking a large slice of the income of the poorest, which of course is true, but when the normal downward trend in real prices reasserts itself as it did in 2023, everybody except farmers breathes a sigh of relief as the normal trade flows resume. Farm families adjust by either tightening their belts or getting other sources of income. These long-lasting trends really struck me the other day, as we took advantage of the early harvest to investigate a wet spot that was very visible during the wet winter and spring with deep ruts in the tramlines.

As my expert neighbour gently eased the bucket of the digger around the mouth of the drain where it emptied into the ditch during wet weather, the history of the farm and that field unfolded. The orange clay tile was broken and blocked as he scraped back the earth. A pipe was uncovered, put in place we reckon sometime around 1800 by an improving landlord to take advantage of the high wheat prices as Europe tore itself apart during the Napoleonic wars. In the run up to the battle of Waterloo in 1815, a tonne of wheat paid a workman’s wages for six months.

Every available acre was pressed into tillage, wheat and potatoes for human consumption and oats to feed the horses destined for the battlefield.

About 4.5m acres were planted as the famine in 1845 approached.

The catastrophe of the famine, the repeal of the Corn Laws by the Westminster parliament, the opening up of the fertile American midwest and the growing demand for meat and milk by a rich and rapidly industrialising Britain all contributed to a collapse in grain prices and production. Tillage areas swung to grass and beef production.

The field we were working in tumbled down to grass sometime I reckon around 1850 and was not ploughed again until the late 1970s with the EEC entry, guaranteed prices and higher yielding winter varieties suitable for a medium heavy soils. The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), born of the food shortages of World War II, spurred the tillage development but as surpluses led to complacency and trade deals reopened up our domestic European market, we are again dependent on wars to disrupt supplies from abroad and give a much needed boost to farmer prices.

In the meantime, the Irish tillage area has shrunk from the 4.5m acres of the early to mid 19th century to less than a quarter of that figure today. The national policy is to increase it but present trade policy is against such a development. Wars are still with us but history shows they are a fragile base for long-term planning.