The two candidates to be the next leader of the Conservative party, and therefore the next prime minister, Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss, are presently attending hustings meetings around the country.
Each of them is trying to convince 160,000 Conservative party members that they have the best plans to run the country.
See also: Farmers have their say on Truss-Sunak as NFU calls for hustings
Compared to the general population, Tory party members are disproportionately white, male and old, so there is a very good chance that lots of them are famers.
While I am white, male and old, I am not a member of the Conservative party and so not eligible to vote, but I have found myself gripped by the theatre of the contest and its implications for my farm.
For farmers, the key issues in assessing the suitability of the two candidates are their commitment to domestic food production, their view of the degree to which Great Britain should diverge from the EU in terms of environmental and animal welfare production standards, and how to solve the chronic shortage of workers in our industry.
Ms Truss’s approach to food security is that British farmers don’t need protection from food imports, which is presumably why she signed two post-Brexit trade agreements with Australia and New Zealand when she was trade secretary.
These agreements mean that, in 14 years’ time, two of the lowest cost beef and lamb-exporting countries in the world will be able to sell as much of their beef and lamb to Great Britain as they like, completely tariff-free.
According to Ms Truss, what UK farmers need is not protection, but the confidence to invest in new technologies such as robots.
These will then milk the cows, drive the tractors and pick the fruit and vegetables that used to be milked, driven and picked by 80,000 migrant contract workers from the EU.
Unlike Ms Truss, in terms of selling himself to farmers, Mr Sunak has the advantage of not having been either Defra secretary or trade secretary, posts which have the most obvious impact on farming.
So he can’t be blamed for the problems at Defra in recent years, such as the endlessly delayed launch of the full Environmental Land Management scheme.
But Mr Sunak was, of course, chancellor of the exchequer for several years, without showing any particular interest in helping farmers.
That said, he did bring in some useful capital allowances, which are always a hit with farmers who love any excuse to splash out on new kit.
And during the Covid pandemic, I’m sure I wasn’t the only farmer grateful to him for a “bounce back loan”.
But this leadership contest remains very confusing for a farmer like me who still thinks of Conservative party politics in terms of Brexit.
Ms Truss voted to “remain” in the 2016 referendum, but is now the clear frontrunner to lead a Conservative party that continues to be highly Eurosceptic.
Conversely Mr Sunak, who is a die-hard “leaver” finds himself as the outsider in the contest.
Some people suggest that this shows that the Conservative leadership election has moved on from Brexit, but I have my doubts. Besides, who can move on from Brexit at present?
Like it or not, for farmers, deciding who will make the best prime minster continues to be mostly about which candidate has the best plans to deal with its worrying consequences.
