IT has felt like Farming and Fairs week over the last few days. Before the House rose for Recess, I made sure to attend an NFU rally at Parliament, marked out by gorgeously decorated tractors and heaps of British produce where MPs were invited to pledge support for our British farmers and to help create a domestic agricultural policy that promotes profitable and competitive farming outside the EU.

Farming, as well as being of huge importance for food production and countryside stewardship, is also the bedrock of the UK’s food and drink manufacturing industry, our largest manufacturing sector, which is worth £108 billion to the British economy.

It will be a time of great change over the next few years for farming, as agricultural negotiations will be of paramount importance during the Brexit process. The European market is so important for farming exports, and tariffs on agricultural products sold into the EU from countries outside the single market can be far in excess of the average 2.3 per cent. Farmers, like all business people, want to plan and invest and it is right that the Government has set out a medium-term commitment to maintain funding at the EU level until 2020, but more work is needed to have a clear plan for the future.

From there I headed to the Parliamentary Bee Fair where, as a member of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Bees, I heard of the importance of bees to agriculture, and the healthy growth in domestic honey production – we only produce about 15 per cent of the honey we consume in the UK, so there are many opportunities in the market.

It was good to see so much support for the industry right across the UK and to learn that apprentices are joining the industry in swarms (sorry!). Indeed it was after a long chat with one apprentice about the favourite forage plants for honey bees that I firmed up my ambition to become a Wiltshire apiarist.

It was then home in time to attend one of the best local nights of the year in the form of the illuminated procession that marks the culmination of the Pewsey Carnival fortnight. Once again we were wowed by the effort put into the floats, the participation of so many people, the support of householders along the route, who joined in the fun by decorating their homes and, above all, that Pewsey spirit which means year after year people get stuck in to produce such a spectacular series of events. Many, many thanks for all that you do.