And don't get him started on the mountain loads of environmental red-tape and regulation surrounding farmers in his country.

Mr Nielsen is a young, well-educated dairy and cropping farmer at Kalundborg, on the Zealand coast about an hour and a half west of Copenhagen.

During a tour of his family farm he explained why farming has become so tough in Denmark, and how this will be to the long-term detriment of the country's economy and climate change efforts.

"Expansion here has not been easy, but we need to expand to keep on top of the high cost of being a farmer," Mr Nielsen said.

"Over time the EU subsidies have turned into a sort of carousel – they've inflated everything from the cost of land and input prices, and now this financial crisis has emerged…

"In the long-term we want them to take these subsidies away, but if it happened now it would be devastating.

"The subsidies started as a means of keeping food prices down, but for farmers in Denmark, where exports are a major focus, subsidies have become a nightmare."

Mr Nielsen runs 132 milking cows plus calves and heifers on his family farm of about 210 hectares, and grows wheat and pastures also.

He said he wants to expand to make his facilities more energy efficient, for both climate and cost reasons, but the expense and the environmental opposition from city-based green groups makes it almost impossible.

"The banks are pushing ways for farmers to cut expenses, and farmers in general are trying hard just to break even waiting for the good times to come back again."

He said emissions of ammonia and methane were a big concern to farmers but the regulatory controls on this were stifling expansion, rather than allowing him introduce changes to his production to combat it.

"The rules to expand are too strict from my point of view," he said.

"There are people calling themselves an environmental organisation sitting drinking café lattes in Copenhagen which demand to see all expansion applications…it's so frustrating.

"The best effort ever to satisfy my neighbours and the requirements to make our farm bigger can be vetoed by this group."

He says climate change is happening and farmers can be involved in addressing it, but admits in Denmark some of the effects of climate change can be positive for agriculture as warmer temperatures and more favourable rain patterns bring the promise of better crop yields and the chance to grow more crop varieties.