THE DEPTH of the crisis in agriculture is brought home graphically in the disclosure today by MP Nigel Evans that 15 dairy farms in his Ribble Valley constituency alone are on the brink of collapse.

But it seems that the government fails to understand farming and does not appreciate that failure to support it will leave Britain increasingly dependent on foreign producers for food and, eventually, at their mercy in terms of both supplies and prices.

Farmers, like any other industry, have to contend with ruthless market forces.

But when their pressures are such that calves which cost £15 to rear and sold for £150 three years ago now only fetch 20p, then it is not just a case of them having to weather a cyclical downturn, but one of them facing bankruptcy in droves.

The personal effects of this must be dreadful, but, if the government is able to ignore them, it cannot overlook the cumulative consequences of the collapse of the farm industry itself. It has triggered this crisis in dairy farms by scrapping - at the height of the calving season - a scheme that aimed to curb the over-production of beef by reimbursing farmers who took their calves out of the beef production chain.

The situation is made worse by the government having done so when the demand in Europe for UK calves for veal is negligible in the aftermath of the BSE crisis that has crippled many farmers already.

Furthermore, as the glaring gap between farm-gate prices and those on supermarket shelves shows, both farmers and consumers are victims of manipulation that ministers must end - particularly when it is adding to the baleful process of farms facing bankruptcy in droves.

Farmers do not want feather-bedding, only a fair deal.

They are not getting it and are confronted with disaster as a result.

But when will the government realise that the country is, too, unless it acts?

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.