The farmer Marilyn Ivings, with husband Ted, runs Mill Farm at Church Enstone, a few miles from Chipping Norton. It's a mixed arable and livestock operation of 220 acres, of which the Ivings own 165 acres, and this year has already seen profound changes.
People talk of the beasts as if they are a commodity, but it's so much more than that.
We talk to them. They are our friends. We hear them all the time. If they were not there, it would be awful. The butcher John Kench runs a high-class family butcher's shop in Chipping Norton.