I congratulate the organisers of this conference on having had the very good sense to put Agriculture at the top of the agenda. The Food and Farming industry is Britain's biggest, with an annual turnover in excess of 100 billion. And it's far from being the idyllic scene glimpsed by millions of townsfolk on their weekend visits to the countryside.
Agriculture is a serious business.
And its a serious business with very serious problems. Problems, the likes of which are unprecedented in my lifetime. The Political philosophy to which I refer, of course, is - Collectivisation. A Collective, by definition, can act only in the interests of that Collective. It cannot act in the interests of its component parts.