Anyone with even the most fleeting interest in food and farming couldn’t help but be captivated by what’s happening in the dairy sector at the moment.

Desperate producers, fed up of receiving below-cost prices for their milk, have been demonstrating outside those supermarkets deemed to be operating unsustainable pricing structures, and urging the public to add their voice to calls for a fairer approach.

Receiving less media attention but apparently careering very much along the same path is horticulture, the pressures of which were laid bare in a major new report from the NFU last week (see pages 4, 24-27). Some of the practices outlined are clearly unsustainable and putting the UK’s future food security in jeopardy. Along with some action that growers can take to improve their own lot, there needs to be change now.

The NFU, of course, has a duty to protect British growers, but these problems are by no means limited to suppliers from these shores. Producers from influential supply nations such as the Netherlands and South Africa are very much singing from the same hymn sheet as their British counterparts.

I would urge supermarkets to sign up to the NFU’s Fruit & Veg Pledge, shout about any positive moves they are doing to build long-term fair relations with producers - wherever they are from - and help safeguard future food supply.