The nightmare of all this, as has been pointed out in several outlets (including this one), is that there is a certain contrivance, a manufactured element to the 'crisis'.
Is the government trying to 'settle scores' with those pesky farmers who'll never see the sense of voting Labour ? Why encourage them, when an election can be won in May. It's worth pointing out that most of the left are very reluctant to criticise what the government is doing; after all, farmers are 'reactionary', and there arent many of them anyway, so who cares if they go bankrupt. This is certainly the opinion of the SWP. But how do they intend to win a revolution in the towns if the countryside is neglected ?