The EU has not yet grasped the nettle of what it will take to ensure the security of its food supply in a war environment. The founders did; that is why the Common Agricultural Policy was finally put into place in 1962. The signers of the original Treaty of Rome knew the price of failure was hunger.

Their successors seem to have forgotten both the wartime food shortages and even the 2008 crisis, which was the last time critical farming input prices were this high. There was a modest €500mm European Commission “support package” for the agricultural sector, as well as a “temporary crisis framework” for farmers, fertiliser producers and fisheries.

But there was an apparent lack of urgency on the part of the commission. As agriculture commissioner, Janusz Wojciechowski said in passing in a speech this month that “the EU itself does not face a food security risk”.