Usually at this time of year, farmers look back on things such as the previous year’s harvest, the ups and downs of the last 12 months’ weather, and the most memorable livestock on the farm in the last year.
The abiding memories of the last 12 months, however, for many farmers are likely to be of things outside of their own businesses.
For many Welsh farmers, the abiding memory of 2024 will be the photographs of 5,500 pairs of Wellington boots that were left on the steps of the Welsh Government building in Cardiff.
The silent but iconic protest was in response to the Welsh Government’s proposal to require farmers to have 10 per cent of their farms under tree cover in order to receive government support.
The action did at least have an impact, with the Welsh Government delaying implementation of the scheme in order to try to address the agricultural industry’s concerns.
In England, of course, protests were seen in London following the autumn Budget, which set out the Government’s plans to reduce inheritance tax relief on the passing down of farms.
Rather than just their Wellington boots, it was farmers themselves, together with many slow-moving tractors, that descended on London in an attempt to make rural voices heard.
It remains to be seen if there will be a change in Government thinking on this matter, but surely the weight of evidence against the figures produced in support of the policy will eventually result in some amendments to the proposals announced in October.
On a more positive note, 2024 saw the 90th anniversary of that staple of farmhouse kitchen tables – the Farmers Weekly magazine.
The weekly trade magazine was first published in 1934, and so its formative years were during the depression that preceded the Second World War, and it came of age during the great push for food security during the 1950s and 1960s.
As a publication, it has witnessed seismic changes in agriculture, from the horse being replaced by the tractor, the drive to cultivate previously uncultivated land, and now the shift away from intensive agriculture to regenerative systems and the re-wilding movement.
It is tempting to speculate what the agricultural industry will look like in 90 years’ time in the United Kingdom.
The advance of technology is likely to bring unimaginable change to the industry.
The machinery and technology that will be involved in food production in 90 years’ time is as likely to be as unimaginable to us as the current generation of monster GPS-controlled tractors would have been to the horse ploughmen of the 1930s.
But what will the countryside look like, and how many people will actually be employed on the land in food production?
The pessimistic view is that there will be no family farms left and that the countryside will fall into one of two categories: land being used for food production and controlled by large agri-businesses, or land being managed for environmental benefit only, with little or no food being produced from it.
For everyone’s sakes, I hope that this does not become a reality, and that there will still be hands-on farmers producing quality local food for many generations to come.