Is a Sustainable European food industry as essential as a sustainable European Energy or defence  industry?  Or is it just a bunch of cosseted farmers who should be let go to the wall?

Both, actually.

By which I mean, where were most of the farmers when the steel mills closed?  The dockyards?  The mines? Wrapped up in their own bubble of subsidy, the chill winds of globalisation were just for the little people. When subsidies were cream on top of an already substantial cake (as in the early 90's when I was working in a rural accountancy practice), did they complain? When the UK's industrial base was being stripped to near nothing, did they suggest getting their heads out of the trough and sharing the subsidy?  Did they hell.

No, I don't believe in unfettered globalisation.  Yes, I believe in a sustainable European food industry. And if this is where we draw the line in the sand and say "Enough", then it's actually long overdue.

But it's not out of any particular sympathy for the farmers, whose solution to the problems of globalisation is still to protect only them.