Many of these farms are already suffering a dangerous nutrient deficit; soils depleted after four to five decades of agrichemically dependent monocultural mining operations that have reduced the top six inches of soils – normally alive with microscopic insects and worms – to little more than dead matter entirely dependent on synthetic nitrate fertilisers and toxic pesticides to grow anything other than weeds.

But these chemical inputs are becoming increasingly expensive and coupled with yields that are no longer sufficient to bring in profits, a large proportion of commercial UK arable farmers are on the edge of bankruptcy.

Government subsidies have kept them afloat up till now, but that is changing. Now the payment emphasis is on 'increasing biodiversity' by introducing nature friendly schemes on farms largely devoid of such features.