I read this morning, in Guy Watson’s musings on the card that comes with my Riverford Vegetables box, of his grave disquiet about the plight of farmers not only in this country but elsewhere. They have become squeezed between the power of the big corporations which no one seems able to challenge successfully and the costs of fuel and other inputs which they need to grow food. The big corporations include both retailers who continually revise downwards the payments they negotiate with farmers for the food we eat and the fossil fuel giants whose diesel is a necessity for farming machinery. Both are making profits while the farmers are making a loss. As Guy points out, farmers have cut their costs to the bone, sent their partners out to work in other industries, and done without employees, working themselves into the ground as a result. Increasingly, the only way of making a living from farming is to become part of an agribusiness, dedicated to profit at the expense of everything that has