MY CAR is a European diesel, bought with a circuit of the globe on the clock, its radiator embellished with four Olympic-style rings. It goes commendably well, economically covering 30,000 miles a year - until, that is, the driver behaves like a fool.

Last week, and I have to admit for the second time, I put petrol in the darned thing. Deep in thought, I filled up, paid and drove off. Performance started to go and, before I cottoned on, the car stopped.

On that first occasion it was midnight and in the middle of nowhere. Thanks to the mobile phone and the AA, I duly arrived home and, next morning, phoned a local mechanic who stripped out the boot, flushed out the tank, put it all together again and left two hours later. The bill was £25.

I repeated my foolishness last week when, coincidentally, the car decided to stop right outside a building bearing those same four rings. I'm in luck, I thought, running across the road in pouring rain to a huge, opulent glass erection more like a private hospital than a garage. Inside, it was full of girls and men in smart suits; not an overall in sight, with gleaming machinery carrying prices I associate with breeding bulls or a goodly deposit on a house.

I was offered coffee insistently, as I had said I was in a hurry, having mobiled a colleague to divert to collect me. I was told I could watch a video of "our latest models and technology". I didn't do that either. Instead, I listened in on a couple complaining about the repair bill on a used car they had only just driven away. No apologies were forthcoming, no gracious repair, only the offer of coffee and the video while a more superior person was called.

I should have got the vibes and run for it but, as you now know, I do not learn by experience. I could have cancelled the day and called the AA.

My day's work complete, I got the trusty driver to return me to my motor, whereupon I received a £300 bill, to which I had to add the cost of the full tank of petro-diesel mix presumably thrown away by the "technical team" (for this was not a place where the mechanic dwells).

Why am I confessing my stupidity? Let me explain the train of thought this opened up. Being screwed, as I believe I was, illustrated one of the big problems we face in farming as primary producers. I needed a service and had to pay ten times the cost of the same work done by a local mechanic. This was a service with overhead costs completely out of balance with its business. Selling cars doesn't require all the suits, carpets, coffee, videos and lavish buildings. My bill named the men who had done the job, as well as the one who had supervised him, yet my artisan had done just as good a job, in the rain, lying on our driveway.

The point is that farmers are price takers, not price makers. I had to pay the price asked. I complained, like the man and his wife had before me, but to no avail.

As farmers, we grow quality crops and hope for a decent price. As recent experience has shown, this can vary on wheat alone from £60-£115/tonne. Likewise, we stock farmers turn up at market with little idea of what we are about to receive. In my work, I see a lot of farm accounts and I know that, certainly in the grassland sector, there are very few farmers earning £10 an hour, which leaves nothing as a return on capital invested.

On a typical beef and sheep farm, a finished beef animal takes 27-36 months to produce, a lamb about a year. When ready for the nation's larder, they go either directly to the processor or via the live market, at which point we have little idea what the cheque will be. We take it; leaving it is not an option. Three weeks later, in the butcher's or the supermarket, we find our meat selling for at least double what we received. The salesman will tell you he has to make a profit to satisfy the shareholders, the bank or the directors. So do we, but no-one says we must make a profit above all else. The customer always pays, be it for cars, meat or services.

For farmers, this must stop, for no longer is our production underpinned. The Government has said we must reconnect with the marketplace, for we are now in the global marketplace. As a meat producer, this means I will have to take more responsibility for that three-week period twixt farm and counter. Does this mean we have to build abattoirs, cutting plants and hanging facilities? I think not, for we must turn to the service sector and tell them that we need them to convert our produce to the retail standard and that they will do so in competition with others in the same business.

To do this, we will need power; the power of scale, of critical mass. In short, we will have to work together - and the history of farming is littered with the carcases of dead co-operatives. Remember the FMC? It died because farmers maintained the live markets were a form of co-operative. They are not, they are clearing houses for a wide variety of quality stock presented by farmers desperately trying to outdo the next man.

United we may stand, divided we will certainly fall.

In the D&S readership area we are lucky, for we have Farmway, one of the few and largest farmer-owned companies in the country. Through such organisations we could start to work through our present dilemma and use our corporate strength to take more out of the retail value of our produce. Think about it, for they are only a phone call away and ready to listen and work on your behalf.

Two final thoughts. First, spare a bit of your expenditure for the small traders, who offer a better service, with good humour and grace. Secondly, had it not been for being screwed by a large outfit doing a job more appropriate to a man in a boiler suit, I would not have picked this theme and, if you are a farmer, you may see some sense in us all looking at our combined assets.