SIR — The world is only as it is today because energy has been locked up by photosynthesis and plants stored as coal, oil and gas. These reserves, the products of millions of years, have now been released to drive our machinery and vehicles.

This massive release is altering our climate as global warming. Anyone considering a future for our children and grandchildren should be interested in a slow-down of this process.

Mr Edge (Your Letters September 22) chooses to ignore the problem. We should all be using our cars less and I personally support an increase in fuel prices. How else will we use fuel more sparingly?

Right now crude oil is $30 per barrel and creating problems. However if this price comes down and tax is reduced, global warming will accelerate.

I do have sympathy for the lorry drivers but feel that their anger should be directed towards their real enemy, the businesses who squeeze their margins so tightly. They are after all in competition with one another to transport goods at the lowest price.

Even if fuel was reduced by 10p per litre they would still be squeezed just as tightly. This is what the market economy is all about.

The letter from Waley-Cohen (Your Letters September 22) saddened me. Subsidised public transport has been provided on Exmoor. How many people use it?

Village shops and services disappear through lack of support. Council houses were sold off so that there is now no housing available to rent. Farm cottages have been sold to the highest bidder. The experimental farm was closed.

The loss of the Milk Marketing Board was a body blow to milk producers. Mad Cow Disease spread as treatment standards for meat by-products were reduced. These by-products were then fed back to cows.

Who presided over these changes which contributed very largely to the present struggle of farmers? The letter provided no constructive long term suggestions to help.

Headage payments introduced in a period of food shortage do not provide sensible support for today's farmers. The proportion of my farm income derived from such subsidy caused me great anxiety.

There is a better way to achieve the objective and political posturing for its continuation is not sensible. We should concentrate on alternatives which do exist and this would result in more sensible farming systems.

I am surprised that farmers have become involved in objections to the fuel price rise. The price they pay only reflects the crude oil price and there is little tax.

Similarly I am surprised at their support for the Countryside Alliance, which includes a mixed bag of hunters, shooters and fishermen, many of whom treat the countryside as a playground and are afraid their games will be threatened.

By contrast there are not many true countrymen left and it is a great pleasure to meet them. Farmers would be much wiser to support the NFU who try hard to represent them.

Farmers do have one thing in common with the truck drivers and it is important for both to identify this real problem. They have a very weak and fragmented market position and the powerful buying-power of supermarkets will squeeze the life out of them if food can be purchased more cheaply elsewhere.

We import milk from Europe; we export a similar quantity to Europe. We import bottled water from France! Surely we are not short of clear drinking water on Exmoor?! — it comes out of our taps.

Some milk sold in Minehead is cartoned in Birmingham; milk sold to me in Lampeter, the heart of Welsh dairy farming, was cartoned in Middlesex. This all involves completely unnecessary transport but someone can make money doing it.

By contrast, produce retailers are extremely efficient but have disappeared. The free market is ruthless but often inefficient.

The British housewife has largely abandoned British farmers. They buy the cheapest convenient goods. The French farmers have more clout as they have supported co-operatives. Street markets are still important outlets and well supported.

Farmers' problems deserve serious discussion and should be above political posturing, mob rule and quick fix. A serious leader should aim for long term solutions and not do a Jospin.

As a society we have to change our ways and live more simply. I am not sure that we are up to this challenge.

Len Gurnett,

Ellicombe Lane,

Ellicombe.