It’s easy to paint farming as a fringe issue. A tiny proportion of the voting public have a direct tie to agriculture. Most voters won’t make up their minds based on parties’ plans for the future of the farm support budget (for England a little over 1% of what the government spends on health and social care). It’s unlikely the TV debates will feature a question on the worrisome prospects for the 2024 harvest. When pollsters ask people to rank the issues that will decide their choice, food and farming are rarely among those they are asked to consider.

There’s been a collective failure to explain why agriculture is, in fact, extremely consequential.

Take the topics that voters say they care about most. Growing more of the right kinds of healthy foods, especially fruit and vegetables, could have a huge impact on diet-related ill health and obesity, in turn reducing the burden on a creaking NHS. Food is a core component of the sharply rising cost of living. But driving down prices further is not wise when the UK already has some of the world’s cheapest food and the finances of its farmers are perilously squeezed. We need a proper reassessment of food’s real value and hidden costs such as emissions, pollution and the loss of natural habitats.