Has there ever been a time when Welsh farmers were more angry than they are right now?

Across the country we have seen heated exchanges at meetings convened ahead of what we are told is the Welsh government’s final consultation on its proposals for Wales’ new environmental land management scheme.

Whilst the Sustainable Farming Scheme (SFS) gives a nod to food production, the proposals are weighted mostly on the environment and delivering a ‘public good’.

Food production is a low priority, an afterthought some might suggest, at a time when global tensions should set the alarm bells ringing in the ears of politicians.

If the worst should happen, how will be feed ourselves? Trees of course have a role to play in mitigating climate change but a field planted with non-productive trees is no use whatsoever for growing food, agroforestry being an exception.

And if there is global stability, the food that the land covered in trees once grew has to come from somewhere so you could argue that supply is simply being displaced, adding to food miles, surely in itself an environmental red flag.

Farmers are low in the pecking order of influence over policy. Their opinions are so often drowned out by well-funded environmental lobbyists and academics, and politicians with one eye on their prospects of being re-elected by a largely urban population disconnected from agriculture.

Indeed, at £37.5m, the cuts to the Welsh Rural Affairs budget announced last autumn made the sector the biggest casualty of the reconfiguration of funding to address a significant shortfall in the wider Welsh budget.

The sense of hopelessness, the loss of control over their own businesses and the feeling of abandonment by policy makers, is now spilling over, not just in Wales but across the world.

Whatever your opinion of rebellious French farmers, their direct action does gain attention and their voices are eventually heard.

In Wales, climate policies are the accelerant adding fuel to the flames of increasing costs and tiny margins that are putting farmers’ livelihoods in peril.

Farmers argue that the expectations of the SFS are unrealistic, unfair and economically unviable and now feel the need to act.