We have really enjoyed working with LEAF Open Farm Sunday to pull together some research on the barriers to farmers hosting LEAF Open Farm Sunday. They have used the results to look at how to recruit more host farmers for 2019 for this ever-growing, popular and hugely...
Today has been another of those days when my colleague asked if she could reboot the BT router to see if our broadband connection would improve. It didn’t. At speeds of 0.65MBps we struggled even to send emails. According the global broadband league table, we’re on a...
Over the last two to three decades farmers have experienced ongoing change and their resilience and mental wellbeing has been continually tested. Add to this the current challenges of policy and ever-increasing piles of paperwork, coupled with the stress of managing...
Over 50% of the world population is under 30 years of age with those at school and college never having licked a stamp nor having to wait while their broadband dials-up. In world terms Facebook now has a larger audience than the population of any country, LinkedIn has...
Over the last few weeks I have struggled to decide on a topic for my first JCM blog – that was until Friday, when I travelled 200 miles south to the Scottish Borders and experienced my first Kelso Ram Sale. The Kelso Ram Sale is considered by many in the livestock...
The number of dairy herds in the north east and the north of Scotland is a tale of woe. In the first six months of this year, the Scottish Dairy Cattle Association revealed that we now have just 28 dairy herds in Aberdeenshire (I was surprised there were this many),...
Hutdesking, updesking and blue sky thinking. So nearly corporate, but not quite. And so very not corporate when in the context of Guardswell, a farm with a difference on a hilltop between Perth and Dundee.
New Zealand farmer and motivational speaker, Doug Avery, who published his award-winning book, The Resilient Farmer, last year, will be giving a series of talks across Scotland in September and October 2018, and we are delighted to be involved. The tour, Drought,...
Young people have the ideas and the energy to change things for the better in rural places, and it’s my firm belief that, with the support of us ‘oldies’, they can make rural places a magnate for, rather than a ‘has been’ place for the under 30s. It was this belief...
We hosted the first-ever Rural Youth Ideas Festival on Rebecca's farm near Kinross last week. Against a backdrop of glamping, live music and local food, over 80 young people enjoyed a line-up of inspiring speakers from rural businesses - from Jamie's Farm to...