The European Parliament's Agriculture Committee has held a minute's silence to mark the number of farmers across the EU who have taken their own lives because of the crisis in agricultural markets.

French MEP Jose Bove requested the move to highlight farmers' desperation over falling price for their produce.

Fine Gael MEP Sean Kelly has said farmers across the EU are enduring difficulties: “Speaking to farmers in the constituency they want to see what is going to happen.

“And indeed that position was raised by Mr Bove in his speech, and rather than availing of that one minute to raise points about agriculture, he asked for the one minute silence, which was given.

“It does bring out the difficulties that farmers are under at the moment, he said there were 600 suicides in France and he said that it was related to the crisis.”