FARMING will always be at the mercy of the weather; it’s a never-ending confrontation, and the last six months have provided some epic battles for farmers in Pembrokeshire.

In the words of Mark Twain: “Climate is what we expect, weather is what we get.’’ No one understands this more than our farmers, whose livelihoods depend on the right mix of moisture and sunshine.

Weather patterns have become so unpredictable that even the Met Office has stopped providing seasonal forecasts.

As the old saying goes, when it rains it pours. No one knows that better right now than farmers.

Grass growth this spring must surely have been among the slowest on record.

Cold temperatures, at a time when prices as under pressure in every sector apart from poultry, will have a significant impact on farmers’ bottom lines. The knock on effect of the late spring and the wet winter will without doubt influence profitability.

Farmers have always had to work with Mother Nature. Agriculture is fundamentally a risky business. Farmers have to be willing to spend hundreds of pounds an acre to plant a crop in the hope that it will come up, the weeds won’t be too bad, the pests won’t kill it and, in the end, there will actually be a market that will pay a high enough price to cover all of these production costs.

As a society, we want farmers to take that risk in order to put food on our plates.

At either extreme – drought or deluge – words of comfort are of little value. Action and solutions are needed.

Although it is not possible to definitively attribute each single episode of extreme weather to climate change, it is considered that more frequent and more severe extreme weather events are expected due to climate change.

Agriculture needs to adapt and respond to rising temperatures, changes in seasonal rainfall patterns, high winter wind speeds and more extreme weather events.

Climate change in the UK might not be as extreme as in other regions so if there is any comfort to be gained from and this might actually give our farmers a market advantage over some competitors.

To this end, we need to start planning now to reduce the effect of the negative impact on farming.

Better information is needed to support farmers in order that the UK has a safe and secure food future.

A programme of best practice visits would help to transfer knowledge and experience.