As a country, we have some difficult ethical and moral questions to face in the next few months, and our individual responses will be critical.

The ongoing violence from Putin is not diminishing, but rather escalating, and the continuing drought conditions in various areas across the world, including this country, are all adding to the certainty of serious food shortages to come.

In a normal year, the winter oil seed rape crop would have been planted in East Anglia by the third week of August. However, with a shortage of seed, and arid conditions, many farmers have been forced to take the decision that they will not be able to plant this crop at all this summer.

There may be an opportunity to get a rape crop into the ground next spring, if we are lucky, but inevitably, it will yield less because of the shorter growing season.

Harvest is well underway in the United Kingdom this year, but the yield is down although, thankfully, the quality is better than expected.

The Hunts Post: There are concerns about next year's harvest.There are concerns about next year's harvest. (Image: RICHARD CRANWELL)

Many desperately-needed crops, both here and on the continent, have been lost to field fires because of the extreme conditions, and although Ukraine has managed to get a few loads out of their ports in the last couple of weeks, much of the grain that they usually supply to keep the world fed, has either been looted by the Russians or destroyed.

This means that there are many purchasers in the world market at present, seeking to secure food for their individual nations and, because of these shortages, prices are rising rapidly.

The United Kingdom is a wealthy nation compared with many, but even here, there are areas of poverty and deprivation.

If we are to protect the poor in our society, we must behave responsibly in the next few months and only buy what we really need to feed ourselves each week. Wasting good food is a scandal. Hoarding is pointless as food goes off.

If you hoard, you deprive someone else of a meal, create a shortage and prices rise further. Neither is it ethical to expect another country to deprive its own population to provide us with cheap imported food, frequently transported from the other side of the world.

So, pull together now, and we will get through this difficult period, emerging as a stronger and kinder country.