A few weeks ago I spotted Portuguese and Moroccan raspberries on the shelves in my local Marks and Spencer. Of course, in and of itself, this isn’t a huge problem. However, while our soft fruit growers are in full fruit and our farming sector is facing significant challenges as a result of Westminster’s cost of living crisis, Brexit and our climate change challenges, this is another hurdle for the industry.

The power of supermarkets is something that has been well discussed in these pages for many years and there have been many commendable attempts to shift the balance of power, sadly, with very minor success.

READ MORE: SNP's Jim Fairlie responds to Tory plans for farming

Supermarkets are undoubtedly a vital part of our food supply chain and control roughly 90% of the grocery sales in this country. With that level of power there must come responsibility - which most of them now better accept. However, ultimately, if supermarkets want to flex their muscles they can and they do.

The much-vaunted supermarket adjudicator is pretty well incapable in stopping them, so why does it not have sufficient power to ensure supermarkets are fully compliant with the responsibilities they have as being the main source of food sales in this country?

That was one of the many questions I had for the Secretary of State for Agriculture Theresa Coffey when she was invited to our Rural committee in Holyrood. Unfortunately, like so many other factors in our relationship with Westminster, we have been completely ignored so far. There was no response when we sent our first invitation, a simple refusal to our second and we are now awaiting a response to our third…

Coffey has claimed that agriculture is a devolved matter so there was no need for her to speak to the Scottish Parliament. Bluntly, this demonstrates either an incredible lack of understanding or she is simply hiding.

There are serious questions for Westminster to answer:

• Why have the UK Government refused to include agriculture in the definition of “Energy and trade intensive industries” when that has the potential to be devastating for our horticulture and poultry sector?

• Where does that fit with any narrative about protecting home grown produce or encourage resilience in domestic food production in the face of spiralling energy costs?

• What will you do the ensure supermarkets bear far more of the responsibility of food security in this country?

• Will you use the UK Internal Market Act to stop the Scottish Government from introducing Bills up here that you disagree with, like LFA support for instance?

• Where is the multi-year guarantee of funding from the UK Government post 2025 to replace the seven year certainty of CAP?

Call me a cynic but my guess is she does not want to be answering questions that she knows will be hugely damaging to her party because they will be hugely damaging to the industry.

The last question above is one that I want to highlight. It should be the single biggest question in the industry just now - from farmers on the ground, to Unions, to politicians.

In 2019 the UK farming sector received £4.9B in support from the EU and Scotland’s agricultural funding comes from that pot of money, or at least 97% of it does. If Westminster don’t continue it, any policy developed here in Scotland will be worthless. Adding insult to injury, this year the EU have also committed an extra €500M to the sector to help with production costs which of course we no longer get because England voted to leave.

While Westminster refuse to give us answers, our Cabinet Secretary Mairi Gougen and First Minister Humza Yousaf have availed themselves to intense scrutiny from the industry at every turn - even in times when they know their decisions may be unpopular. They have explained rationale and been prepared to listen to the response (and change course if required). They have never dodged the scrutiny. That’s because they are right here in Scotland and there is no hiding place – and why I believe all our decisions should be made here in an independent country.

Even when this is the reality, the Scottish Tories are constantly demanding scrutiny of the Scottish Government decision making or falsely accusing the SNP of ignoring the rural sector. It’s clear this is to divert attention away from the big Westminster policies that are going to come crashing down on us - which they refuse to engage with the Scottish Parliament and industry on.

The question for farmers land managers and everyone else in the country is:

Are we prepared to pay the price for a broken Union that is robbing us of our resources, limiting our ambition and depriving us of opportunities to be the kind of country we know can be?

I think you know where I stand on the issue but, when you think about it, where do you stand?