Being aware that we live in a farming community, we kept asking ourselves, are we doing enough to support those men and women who work very hard so we can happily sit at the table everyday and be presented with a piece of bread and a glass of milk at breakfast or a balanced meal at dinner time?

Admitting that we are not experts in that field or what goes on in the farming industry at the moment, we decided to talk to one of our many local farmers whose family have been farming for more than 100 years in the Ottery Parish and gather his opinion on the present situation.

Our first meeting took place during the winter and immediately exposed us to the intensity of the work a farmer does.

By the time he could meet us he just had come back from checking the cows, fed a calf which was not 100 per cent, cleaned the cow beds –which for interest are water beds on top of foam and probably the best he could had bought for them and also he had checked to make sure nothing was calving.

Not mentioning preparing his farm and fields to the threat of storms about to hit our area with predicted winds of 80 to 90 miles an hour.

With the imminent drought the heat wave has produced in all parts of England, we decided to restart our previous chat, this time at summer time, asking what concerned him the most regarding the future of farming.

Shaking his head he answered: “There are a lot of frustrated farmers out there right now as there seems to be so much biased media reporting against farmers in general. Everyone is trying to make a bigger story and it’s a shame they find the material to do so, but I am glad it is an extreme minority."

Many of our farmers have children who already have shown their desire and enthusiasm to continue the family tradition so we asked him how farmers could guarantee a future for their children.

The farmer added: “My children understand what farming is all about and it doesn’t phase them, they are keen on the countryside life but I do have concerns about how the industry is being portrayed as we always seem to be on the end of bad press which always makes a better story than the general status quo.

"For some strange reason it seems that for some, planting trees and importing the food we need without control of how it is produced is the way forward to save the planet but for us seems a crazy solution.

“What I am most concerned about is the biased media reporting against farmers and what they produce.

"I am sickened by the way the British farmers are portrayed, when all we are trying to do is produce wholesome food to the highest welfare standards in the world.

"Farming has changed so much in the last generation, especially on the side of the technology we have available. So much could be written to put the record straight and stop people from believing what they hear based on unsubstantiated reports.”

The lessons learnt during world conflict times or when Nature turned against us as it happened in 1963 and it is happening at the moment due to climate change, sent a clear message out.

Our survival greatly depends on the hard work of those men and women who are out there night and day, sunshine, rain or blizzard providing us with our most essential needs.

We as a farming community should undoubtedly be there supporting them at all times, believing them and not allowing them to be drawn by false information or fanaticism.

After witnessing the reality of farming we couldn’t help but believe, farming is a real vocation.

We thank all the farmers in our area for the incredible job they and their families have done for this community. We hope future generations appreciate the incredible importance of a farmer’s job and support them as it should, by experiencing the real life of those in the farming industry and not believing in biased information.