It is December 21 as I write this, the Winter Solstice and the shortest day – in the north of Scotland they only have five hours of sunlight, and it seems like that here, writes Hugh Besent.

Day after day, we have had rain and a dry spell would be welcome.

Recently, a group of NFU Cymru members met Craig Williams MP at Cilhaul in Trefeglwys with the kind permission of Robert Jenkins and family, who are always good hosts.

There we discussed current political issues and the Brexit talks.

I hope our MP got the message that the farming industry wanted a trade deal with the EU so that current levels of food exports would not suffer.

As I write this article, we are seeing chaos at the ports due to Covid-19, and the Europeans stopping all exports from the UK.

This situation could be the norm in the New Year with or without a Brexit trade deal.

All food exports will have to have an export health certificate certified by a vet.

It is vital that the deal agreed delivers tariff free access to the EU and that even with a deal both sides work to minimise the bureaucracy required to move products between the UK and EU.

However, life on the farm has to carry on as usual.

We’ve been busy artificially inseminating the cows and heifers, and to date 75 have been served, and hopefully most of them will hold. Soon the new Hereford bull, Dylan, will be allowed to have his wicked way and clear up cows not artificially inseminating and in calf.

Early in January, the vet will start to scan the cows and heifers at 30 days after service to check pregnancy rates.

Scanning will carry on regularly for a couple of months as it is important for us to know the exact dates of when individual cows are likely to calf.

Let us hope that 2021 will be a better year than 2020 with Covid-19 under control, and a support package for food production to replace the EU system.