Protecting the future of rural youth

Protecting the future of rural youth

Rural places have no future without young people. Wherever I travel, the world over, this is a universal truth; when our youngsters leave it’s rare that they return, and if they don’t return, then rural places lose crucial services – schools, health services, sports...
Open Farm Sunday – the new Rock & Roll

Open Farm Sunday – the new Rock & Roll

Will Evans is a Welsh farmer. A couple of years ago he started a podcast called Rock & Roll Farming, he did it because no-one else was telling the farming industry’s story from a farmer’s perspective. He interviews a different person every week and it’s always...
Oxford debated what might trade look like post-Brexit

Oxford debated what might trade look like post-Brexit

The best way for the UK government to secure a prosperous trading future for its farmers was a moot point for the four speakers in the Oxford Farming Conference’s ‘World beyond Brexit’ session. Farming minister George Eustice focused on the “lucrative”...
Learning from New Zealand

Learning from New Zealand

I’m writing this from Ashburton, which is an agricultural town in the South Island of New Zealand. It’s a fitting time to be in the country that famously lost its farm support payments in the 1980s, given the changes that we face to our own farm subsidies post-Brexit....