CASH flow and returns on farming investments in time, materials, machinery and livestock are risky. Prey to world movements in prices and politics.

Plus local and international weather conditions, scare stories in the news about for example beef and eggs and the latest whim of the latest politicians in charge of agriculture.

For example, our current Defra minister, although confirming it was “business as usual” for farming, questioned previously whether “Britain needed its own farming industry” and that “subsidies must be abolished”. Not ultra reassuring.

Add that to a Treasury statement that although farming would continue to receive the EU funding they would have got from the current system until 2020, that “options for long term reform beyond that point” needed to be considered. Not brilliant news for an industry that has to be planned well ahead.

So although milk prices have taken a turn for the better in the last week or so, the uncertainty surrounding farming continues to wreak both personal and financial havoc.

This has come home to us with a bump in the last few weeks when observing people we know close to us.

I think some blame must also lie with the financial institutions that allow individuals to plunge deeper and deeper into the money pit.

It can happen so swiftly that the money owed mounts up faster than that coming in. It is a worry facing all farmers and seems so cruel when you can see how hard everyone works.

To pass a farm, fields and barns and see them empty where once a herd grazed and over wintered, seems especially poignant. But farmers have businesses to run too and I am afraid sympathy does not pay the bills.

On a lighter note, however, and to show that hopefully you can turn a penny or two in agriculture, I have just had a book published.

Hens, Hooves, Woollies and Wellies, written by me Bobbi Mothersdale (real name) and available from Old Pond publishing on the internet, Amazon and I hope all good book shops.

It covers the entire farming year on a day-by-day basis. Calving, lambing, dipping, clipping, silaging, haymaking, harvest, getting drilled up, tupping and back again to bringing the herd home.

Much of it tongue in cheek, some of it sad, a lot of it I hope funny. Make an ideal Christmas present so please buy a copy, or two. Thank you.