First, animal welfare concerns led to a problems with the export of veal calves to the continent. That led to protests and attempts by the farmers to export the animals through specially-chartered transports.

Then concerns over BSE in food led to a collapse in beef prices and a ban on the sale of beef-on-the-bone. Farmers responded by blockading ports, supermarkets and meat-processing plants.

Farmers have resorted to dumping unwanted animals

Most recently, the withdrawal of subsidies guaranteeing a minimum price for ewes and bull calves has added to the industry's problems.

Farmers unable to sell the animals have resorted to dumping them in public places as a protest.

The impact of livestock problems has been greater in Wales than in the rest of the United Kingdom. A total of 94% of Welsh farms are dependent on livestock - the proportion for the UK as a whole is 72%.

Wales is the biggest sheep-rearing region in Europe, as its 11 million sheep account for 26% of the entire number in the European Union. It also produces 12% of the beef cattle of the EU.

Forced out of business

The almost total dependence of Welsh agriculture on livestock meant that the recent difficulties have plunged nearly the entire industry in Wales into crisis.

Farmers' leaders have stressed that the economy of huge areas of rural Wales - 76% of the Welsh land area is hill-farming country - is tied to agriculture.

Hill farmer Ken Jones tells BBC Wales's Victoria Ellis about the industry's problems.

With farms being forced out of business, the local economy and the Welsh-language culture which is a feature of many of those areas is also being badly hit, they say.

Before the establishment of the National Assembly for Wales in 1997, Welsh farmers had frequently complained that their voice was not being heard in London or in Brussels.

They said the interests of comparatively prosperous English arable farmers were being put before those of poorer Welsh hill farms due to the lack of a distinctive Welsh presence in the government negotiations.

Many farmers' leaders expressed the hope that devolution would mean they would get a fairer hearing and would finally get their concerns debated in Brussels.

Christine Gwyther: storm of criticism

However, when the National Assembly opened for business in May, they were quickly disillusioned.

Alun Michael's appointment of Christine Gwyther as the Agriculture Secretary led to a storm of protest when it emerged she was a long-term vegetarian due to her concern for animal welfare.

After weeks of wrangling, farmers' leaders reluctantly agreed to co-operate with her in the best interests of the industry.

But that uneasy truce quickly broke down when farmers, driven to angry protests by the collapse of the market for ewes and bull calves following the withdrawal of subsidies, failed to get the answers they wanted from Ms Gwyther.

FUW leader Bob Parry: The Assembly was 'useless'

The Welsh Conservatives, meanwhile, capitalising on the perception of Labour as an urban party out of touch with rural concerns, added to the criticism of the "inaction" of the Labour administration in Wales.

The Tories, Welsh Liberal Democrats and Plaid Cymru made repeated demands, supported by the farming unions, for the Assembly to be recalled from its summer recess to debate the crisis.

But these were dismissed by First Secretary Alun Michael and by Ms Gwyther. She attracted further criticism for her handling of the situation when she described the requested meeting of the Assembly as "an afternoon of hot air."