Stoking culture wars or solving problems? Pick a side.

Leaving Xitter has many benefits. And I had other things on my mind over Remembrance Weekend. So I completely missed the furore over Jeremy Clarkson's latest contribution to solving farmers' problems.

I for one welcome his contribution. Saying the quiet part out loud helps us get to the nub of the arguments pretty damn quickly.

Let's start with a reality check. It was not a Labour government that brought farmers to the brink of despair. It was not Labour that set a course to leave the EU without a plan or agreed to trade deals that damage UK farming: introduced a scheme that benefits large landowners but is still too complicated and too piecemeal to engage and support smaller farms: promised then failed to deliver a food and farming strategy that could have given farmers a sense of the future that they have to plan for. It was - as it happens - mostly his Cotswolds neighbours who did all that.

Weaponising farmers' distress at this volatile point in our time is dangerously high risk. Because what it is actually doing is this. It is simplifying and polarising complex arguments and pitting farmers against other citizens in the deliberate stoking of a toxic culture war. Already we're seeing on the socials a revival of the familiar old stereotypes. "Reactionary old white men, on the streets pleading poverty in their half a million-pound tractors, poisoning our countryside, keeping the rest of us orf their land..."

There are many types of farmers. Some, like Jeremy, have all the resources they need to adapt to and work with the changes to inheritance tax. Others, like Guy Singh Watson have already planned ahead to sustain a viable business, handing it on to his employees. Many many more are just trying to work out how to run and hand on a family business with a decent future and a fair return for their work.

And it isn't working properly for farmers right now.

Yet I work with farmers - well-established and new entrants - who want to be part of the solutions to the huge issues we need to tackle for all of society. They are finding ways to grow good, healthy food sustainably. They want it to be good business to be a good business. They want to work with their communities and with partners in constructive dialogue to improve the whole food and farming system. They really want governments to value food and farming at the heart of - and crucial to - a resilient and prosperous economy.

The real kicker is this: when you ask everyday citizens about food and farming (as we have done over the last two years) and explain to them how it works right now, they back the farmers who want to farm more sustainably. They support change in the supply chain so that farmers get more of the value of what they produce. They understand the arguments and trade-offs, and they support the practical policies that would make a tangible difference in farmers' lives.

But the licence to farm is fragile, and public backing could be easily lost.

Clarkson's intervention will capture all the attention and comfort farmers who don't feel valued or understood. But taking the public conversation in this direction is unforgivably high risk.

Meanwhile, on 19 November, at our long-planned Citizens Food Summit, we'll be proposing some practical solutions - backed by farmers, businesses and members of the public.