Winter is surely with us following two storms, Arwen and Barra, but luckily neither occurred on a new moon, writes Huw Besent of the NFU.

With a new moon and to a lesser extent a full moon, the tides are higher, and we do not want a high tide and storm surge at the same time, given our proximity to the sea.

We were fortunate not to have a power cut during milking although the lights were flickering, and we managed without using our generator. Those poor people in the northeast of England have certainly suffered, without power for over a week, as electricity is something we all take for granted.

Earlier this week the First Minister, Mark Drakeford, announced a scheme in conjunction with the Woodland Trust to offer every household in Wales a tree to plant.

The idea, I assume, is to try and sequestrate carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and reduce greenhouse gases.

It is apparent that trees take 30 years before any meaningful sequestration takes place and I question how many trees will be tended to after planting and not left to die.

Planting trees in urban areas is fine, but it must be the right tree in the right place or else drains and other underground infrastructure can be seriously disrupted.

Should Mr Drakeford be really concerned about the environment, a good start would be to dig up all the paved-over urban gardens so as to help reduce storm run-off and encourage the cultivation of food crops and traditional flower gardens.

In much of Wales and especially locally, there is much talk of ‘re-wilding’ the environment with ‘outfits’ purchasing vast areas of farmland.

As was witnessed in May 2019, large areas of rough mountain land burnt and went up in smoke which was seen by plenty in the Dyfi Valley.

This has become a much more common occurrence. All the accumulated carbon was lost and, should this land have been under agricultural management, the fire would have been much less likely to have occurred.

The purchasing of farmland by large corporations purely for carbon offsetting cannot be right. They should rather be looking at their own practices and reducing the carbon dioxide they produce.

Land under agriculture, in a livestock system, is already sequestrating carbon.

In the end we must ask – where will our future food come from if not from this land?