'We could make a £25,000 loss as a result of a no-deal Brexit'

“We will make on finished cattle being sold somewhere in the region of a £25,000 loss.

“With one employed person and a full time partner that is a huge cut out of your profit margin.”

The arable side of the business was also being impacted, with contracts to grow oilseed rape for the French automotive industry and linseed for the German food sector ‘gone by the wayside’.

“We are soon going to be planting our OSR for next year but we have no guarantee because there are very few contracts coming after October 31. What business does that?

“Plant in hope and no know what your end price is going to be?"

Mike Gooding, farmer and director of Farmers First, which processes about 10 per cent of the UK’s weekly lamb kill, said no-deal and excluding the UK’s key EU market was ‘manufacturing suicide’.

He said: “There is a real danger the sheep sector and the farming industry in general will be the sacrificial lamb of Brexit negotiations.”

In terms of economics of production going forward, Mr Gooding predicted fewer farmers managing sheep in larger flocks, running across multiple holdings.

He added: “This will bring some people opportunities but there will be casualties along the way.”