Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey drove a tractor through a field of cows to highlight the issue of rising food prices.

Mr Davey was visiting Stanbridge Farm off Heath Road East in Petersfield, where Peter Caines keeps a herd of 220 dairy cows, when he showed off his agricultural driving skills on April 30.

Mr Caines gave Mr Davey a tour of the farm, outlined the issues facing farmers and explained how modern technology helped the milking process.

He said: “We milk record once a month, and that means putting a whole load of meters in that we use to take individual samples of all the cows and record their yield.

“They use those 12 recordings in the year to give you a projected yield, you get the milk quality and it identifies things like mastitis.

“We do that once a month, and we have to do that with our Tesco contract, but we were doing it before because that’s how we manage the herd. It gives us all the information.

“I’m also very lucky that I’ve got a very good stockman. You can throw all the computers and technology in the world at it, and he will know how the cows are before any of it.”

Mr Davey said the Liberal Democrats were “really worried” about the cost of living crisis, particularly food prices.

He said: “We’ve already seen petrol and diesel prices go up, but experts are predicting that food prices will go up by another ten per cent later this year thanks to Trump’s idiotic war in Iran and farmers facing soaring fertiliser costs, and red diesel going up.

“We’ve said the government needs to do something now, not sit on its hands and wait. In the King’s speech there should be a Good Food Bill. Farmers in England are the only farmers in Europe who don’t get farm support payments to produce food, and that means we don’t have so much food security in our country. We’re not backing British farmers.”

Mr Davey said dealing with food prices in isolation would not solve the problem.

He said: “We need to approach it across the shopping basket, if you like - not just food but electricity bills, gas bills, and petrol and diesel.

“There is a lot of pressure on people at the moment. If we have a closer trading relationship with Europe that will bring more tax revenue into the government so we can do lots of things to help people in this cost of living crisis.”

The Liberal Democrats’ East Hampshire parliamentary candidate Dominic Martin, who was also at the farm, said: “In East Hampshire many people are not on the gas mains.

“They’re still relying on heating oil for their heating and they aren’t cost protected by the government’s current system, so they’re really exposed to these high international prices.”

Mr Davey added: “I think that’s a really good point. So many people in rural areas are dependent on heating oil. The government’s done nowhere near enough.”