The recent weather has given cause for thought because if more extreme weather is becoming the norm, insulation and fuel economy – which were already high on the agenda - will stay up there, and water conservation and keeping stock in a new climate will present new challenges.

New genetics that will allow us to produce more, in a more environmentally friendly way, at reasonable cost, may save the day provided our research base is there to develop them– but we also need a policy that will promote and protect our ability, to produce food over the long term and at reasonable cost.

The trick will be to persuade our Government that it needs to engage with the mainstream EU debate and be prepared to fight for sufficient funding to pay for what is needed here in the UK.

This will be the year in which most of the key decisions relating to the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy in 2013 will be taken.

Renewable Energy will gain new focus when the Renewable Heat Incentive details are published and we should expect as much of a rush to wood fuel as there has been to solar PV.

The clash between food and energy, in the case of field scale solar PV, and between tourism and energy, in the case of onshore wind, will, inevitably, intensify. There is going to be a lot of discussion of “localism” as we find out what it really means and whether it will empower us or restrict even the simplest of rural developments.

We desperately need new revenue streams to be able to maintain, let alone increase, land profitability at a time of rising costs.

Local Enterprise Partnerships are emerging but, at the moment we in Devon seem to have no obvious bride to go to the altar with. We will be pressing to ensure the CLA will be at the heart of any new Rural partnership.