SAD that it is, this, what the farmers are going through now could be a blessing in disguise.

For too many years a vast majority of the public has been all too ready to grind the farmer into the ground - for too long the farmer has been under valued. Farmers are producers of food in whatever form, and we all need food to eat.

This shows what can happen when farming in this country has real problems, and just the opposite to what most of the public think, farmers do care for their animals, yes, now I hear people saying, just for money, of course its for money, as well as working long hours for very little of it, and loving the job they do.

Farmers need to make a living also and in normal times there is some left to be ploughed back into the farm to keep it running.

It just shows that what's happening to farming now affects everyone.

What would our land be like without animals to graze it, and farmers to look after them.

So perhaps in the future the public will appreciate a bit more of what the farmers do, and not so ready to condemn them - on the least occasion.

You will always get one rotten apple in the box, but don't think because of that, that we are all tarred with the same brush.

We as farmers do care - which I would have thought with recent events have brought that home to most of the public, if not all.

I lived in Redditch and farmed local for many years back in the 1950s.

DON TINSEY, Woodlands Farm, Cranham.