Pat O’Toole details four major shocks (in the first part of a series) that the Irish food and agri sector faced head on.

It makes for fascinating reading despite the fact it is recounting history we should all remember very clearly.

How quickly we forget some of the detail and indeed some of the outcomes from these so-called scandals at the time.

It often seems our industry as a whole responds better to a shock or crisis.

Are there lessons in these stories for the everyday crises we have at the moment which include; low income on the drystock side of the house, the succession battles, the slow death of productive farming in a part of the world that excels in quality. It would make you think.