When Did Farming Stop Feeling Free

We talk honestly about what it’s like raising children on farms now, and why it feels less free than it did when we were growing up. We weigh up harvest pressure, social media comparison, and the real economics pushing farms towards diversification and away from pure food production. 

• more rules and tighter safety expectations shaping farm childhood 
• memories of harvest as a social family season versus today’s urgency 
• larger farm businesses and fewer small family farms changing succession pressure 
• diversification as the default way to make a farm pay in the UK 
• social media creating “Instagram vs reality” stress for farmers 
• instant replies and free advice expectations hitting small planning businesses 
• pride in rural upbringing, responsibility, and knowing where food comes from 
• how technology could reshape farming for the next generation 

www.foxesrural.co.uk

Transcript

Welcome And Why Emily Joins

Speaker 0:01

I'm Guy and I help farmers get planning permission on their farms. And welcome back to the Farmers Planning Podcast. Today I've got my wife Emily. She's helping me on the podcast and she's going to be interviewed on a few topics, namely farming families and children and social media in the business. So we just wanted to talk about a few things that are probably relatable to a lot of listeners.

Farm Childhood Then Versus Now

Speaker 0:27

And one of those is raising children on a farm today in 2026 compared to when we were younger in the 1980s. So what do you think's changed on farms for children that are being reared, as so to say?

Speaker 1 0:45

I mean, I was a 1990s baby.

Speaker 0:48

1987.

Speaker 1 0:51

I can't remember when I was three. Um I think unfortunately, as with everything, a lot more legislation has come in in the latter years. So whereas we perhaps were more free when we were children, now, you know, children can't do as much as they perhaps did when we were growing up.

Speaker 1:11

What like sitting in tractor cabs and stuff like that, where we're now, you know, children can't go on the tractors like we used to. I think our parents were probably a bit more free with that, weren't they?

Speaker 1 1:22

Yes. I mean I remember one of my dad's tractors didn't even have a seatbelt on the passenger seat and it didn't really seem to be a problem. I don't know whether we used to go on the road, can't remember that, but we definitely used to um be around for corn carting and things, and it was quite quite fun. My sister and I used to take it in turns to sit there, whereas now, like you say, the children aren't really allowed anywhere near the near the tractors. They have become a bit more of a novelty.

Harvest Culture And Modern Pressure

Speaker 1:48

Do you think that farming was a bit more relaxed in that era? As in, do you think if you look at your dad when he was harvesting compared to a dad that's combining today? Do you think it was more of like a sort of you know, carefree harvest?

Speaker 1 2:03

Yeah, I a hundred percent. I don't know whether it's because I've got rose tinted glasses slightly, because I was still a child. Um but I remember harvest teas, harvest suppers being a big thing every day. We used to either have, you know, my mum used to make picnics or fish and chips or proper food used to always have it. Um my dad always used to have a drink and it was a big social occasion for our family with grandad and whoever was working on the farm. And although there was a pressure and it was always the same farmers that started first in Essex and everyone knew who it was going to be, I think nowadays people are so paranoid, you know, because of everything and because everyone communicates slightly differently, if they're not con combining and harvesting when everyone else is, the pressure that that farmer must feel, I think, is far greater maybe than it used to be in days gone by when people just used to be a bit more like, Oh, I'll run a bit later tonight, or oh, or you know, take us another couple of days.

Speaker 2:59

Yes, yeah. Everything didn't have to be done yesterday, did it? Because we've got a friend at the moment, he's away on holiday and he's getting a lot of stick at the moment for being away whilst everyone else is combining. And you can tell that he's fretting, going, Oh, I should be there. But but it's so early, harvesters moved a bit earlier.

Speaker 1 3:15

It's the first of July today. Harvesting and combine has combining has gone through got got earlier and earlier rather throughout the years.

Succession Plans And Diversification Reality

Speaker 1 3:23

When can you book a summer holiday if you've got a family?

Speaker 3:26

And do you think that's because in in terms of what we were talking about with children growing up on farms and families farming the land? Does that come back to like the whole family farm thing that the family farms have gone that were probably there in the 90s? Um, you know, when you think about it, there were smaller farms, more of a family feel, and it's become more corporate agribusinesses, much bigger scale, and the pressure's on because the margins are so tight. So is that why people, you know, there's this sort of constant pressure?

Speaker 1 3:55

Yeah, quite possibly. I think um in an ideal world when we were growing up, there was a talk, and everyone kind of assumed, I suppose, in the family farm that the someone in the family would take over. Whereas now that's not necessarily a possibility. Lots of the big farms have absorbed all the smaller farms, or they're being contracted out due to costs. So there's not all the little little family farms necessarily that there were when we were growing up.

Speaker 4:22

Because I would say in our parents' generation, it was more normal for, you know, there to be some sort of succession plan, you know, where the next generation would move into the farm and take over the farm, which actually creates a huge amount of pressure whether they wanted to or not. They might not have been very good business people, they might not have wanted the pressure of running a business, they might have just wanted to go and get a job, or they might have had aspirations to go and do something else. But generally, a lot of them went back into the farms, whereas nowadays that's not quite the case. Do you agree or not?

Speaker 1 4:50

I would agree, but I also think that as you and I know firsthand, farm most farms nowadays can't make enough money purely based on the farming. So you have to diversify. So I think the pressure for the current farmer, if you like, is trying to work out monetary-wise can the next generation actually come on the farm and make a money for both them, you know, and their parents who might be both relying on an income.

Speaker 5:16

Yeah, so that they've got to come onto it with a project because I think what you're saying is that a lot of people that are running the businesses already, they're not farming. So they've had to diversify their income into clamping pods, office lets, or a wedding venue or something like that. So they're already not farming. So when the next generation comes, it's more of a multi-diversified business. And that's what farms have been encouraged to do in the UK, diversify and push away from the food production and go more into the diversification of your assets.

Speaker 1 5:46

Agreed. I think there are very few farms in the whole of the UK that are purely farms now.

Speaker 5:51

Yeah.

Speaker 1 5:51

Lots of them have lettings, buildings, other diversification, you know, pick your own or, like you say, glamping pods. There's very few that are just purely, you know, combining

Social Media And Comparison Stress

Speaker 1 6:04

crops.

Speaker 6:04

Yeah. So that brings me on to what when we're talking about the pressure and everything having to be done quickly. So harvest, a lot of peer pressure, as well as market pressures. Social media is a big thing in farming and for our businesses in farming and on planning and things like that. Do you how how do you think that's had an influence on that sort of pressure on farmers and seeing that someone, you know, is combining spring barley somewhere or winter wheat, and yours isn't even ripe and yours looks dead, but their Instagram photo shows it perfect?

Speaker 1 6:40

I think I think social media has a lot to answer for nowadays. There's lots of good things, and we have benefited from some of the good things in that you know, look at your own social media channel, it's amazing, it's doing really well. However, on the flip side of that, we have become an instantaneous society, I think. A bit due to, you know, the Amazon, um, you know, Next Directory, everyone expects everything yesterday and instantly. Um so for example, on social media, you know, people reply, people send an email and they're expecting a reply instantly. If they then haven't had a reply by the next morning, they're chasing you already.

Speaker 7:20

Well, I sent you a Facebook message, I sent you a WhatsApp, I've left you a voicemail, and I've sent you an email and nobody's responded. That was 11 o'clock last night.

Speaker 1 7:28

And it's now nine o'clock and they're already you're already being chased.

Speaker 7:30

It's just it's And they're half a dozen people chasing you for it.

Speaker 1 7:34

Yeah, exactly. And in terms of the farming comparison, it's Instagram versus reality. I think it's the same on everything. People only put online what they want people to see online. So if they've got a great field of you know, barley, they're gonna show that bit. They're not gonna show the bit that's been eaten by the, you know, by the crows.

Speaker 7:52

Or the bit their dad sprayed off by accident.

Speaker 1 7:54

Exactly. So I do think the pressure must be, yeah, horrendous, really. And even with not just actually what they've done, but things on people's farms. So nowadays people show off what they've got on their farm. They might actually only be um, you know, having a test drive of of a new tractor. However, they can showcase it on social media for you know 10 reels. It looks like they've bought a £100,000 tractor. In reality, they haven't. But because you're only seeing that snapshot shot for such a short period of time, you've instantly made your mind up, well, they must be doing really well. They've got that new tractor, or they're always buying new machinery, which might not always be the case.

Speaker 8:33

So I think they've got the strongest balance sheet, doesn't it? Exactly.

Speaker 1 8:36

You have to take social media with a pinch of salt, I think.

Speaker 8:38

Yeah.

Free Advice Expectations In Planning

Speaker 8:39

So that brought us on to something else that we thought we could discuss in terms of everybody sort of wanting something for nothing. There's a bit of a society which I think has come through this sort of social media reactiveness of, you know, people wanting free advice and quick advice for for free. And I just find it remarkable because you wouldn't go to a solicitor in the day and say, Oh, I want my house conveyed for free. So so why why should we as a planning business give money away for free? Sorry, advice away for free?

Speaker 1 9:13

Yeah, I there is um I mean, I'm sure we could spend pretty much all day on the phone to people that ring up just giving free advice away without doing any of our own work.

Speaker 9:26

Um there's an expectation from people that you're not a business, that you're a helpline and that they're entitled to receive help. So it's this sort of sense of entitlement as well, isn't it? Of, well, I've got a problem, so you should help me, and mine's the most important, which is absolutely fine, and we're happy to help, but you've got to instruct us before we can help. And they kind of miss that point, don't they?

Speaker 1 9:47

I think, well, like you've you've just said, I think people do expect everything for nothing nowadays and they expect it done yesterday. You know, people who have not even clients of ours yet will sometimes ring three times in one day just to keep asking the same question when we've actually already gone back to them and said, We're happy to help you on this, you know, we're the experts, we've got some advice. However, you do need to instruct us and then we can act for you.

Speaker 10:14

And as a planning business the other day, we took a call from someone who wanted a free blog checklist that they could submit the application themselves and not use our services. Yeah.

Speaker 1 10:23

I mean, and like and like you said, it's bizarre because the bigger the company is, the more that they people almost expect that they have to pay. So, for example, you wouldn't go into Sainsbury's and try and haggle for a bag of carrots and say, Well, I've only got ten pence. Can I pay you ten pence? Whereas if you've got people who go into a farm shop, they're much more likely to haggle. And I think people forget that actually small businesses and business owners are the ones that really are trying to make their money, whereas the big corporations are actually the ones that don't necessarily need, you know, need the money as much necessarily as a smaller business is, but there's this weird perception that you know a small business can give you stuff for free, whereas a bigger one can't.

Speaker 11:03

Yeah.

Speaker 1 11:03

It's bizarre, I'm not sure where it's really come from.

Rural Upbringing And Food Awareness

Speaker 11:06

Yeah. So just as a parting point, what what do you feel most proud of having children growing up in a rural environment?

Speaker 1 11:16

Oh, um I think I feel incredibly lucky that our children do have the childhood they have because you and I both grew up on farms and it was a childhood that I have treasured memories of. So I'm embracing the fact that they they are free, they can, you know, run around and and do what they want in terms of the large landscape. Um, I mean last week it was the Essex Um Agricultural Food and Farming Day, where all the child, you know, 5,000 children are taken to Rittle College and shown around all the different farming stalls. So there's crops, there's food and there is um livestock, all the different agricultural elements. And it's amazing having been involved with that, what some of the children are unaware of. And I feel lucky that our children are totally aware of it. For example, I remember a couple of years ago, um, you know, there are milkshakes there, and some of the children did not realise how milkshakes became milkshakes, and even the vegetables, some of the vegetables of the simple game of, you know, what's this, what's this, they don't even know simple vegetables. Yeah. And I do think that that is because everything's scary. Everything's in a packet, everything comes from, you know, the supermarket. I remember for the cow, you know, the cow one, someone did say, you know, where did your milk come from? Expecting obviously everyone to say cow. I mean, there was a cow there, and people were still saying, Oh, Sainsbury's.

Speaker 12:40

Yeah.

Speaker 1 12:40

And I actually don't think the children have put to two and two together to realise where food comes from, which is alarming.

Speaker 12:47

And I think a little bit of discipline for the children as well, sort of, you know, when they grow up in a rural environment and they've got, you know, like I'll just go and look at the sheep before school and stuff like that, and they they they check them, and there's a little bit of responsibility there, and they then have a bit of ownership on something. They're not just sat on a screen or watching something. I mean, we are guilty of that as well.

Speaker 1 13:10

Agreed. And but they also our children know the seasons um a bit more, I think, than than other children possibly. So they know, you know, oh, it's really rainy at the moment because this happens on the farm or um this floods. Um and even though we don't actually harvest anything ourselves, but obviously some of the land around us does get, you know, combined, it's still a really exciting day. And the children know that, you know, when opposite gets, you know, com for you know, combined and foraged, it's really exciting, and the children love it. And I want them to love it rather than just think, oh look, it's been done today, or oh, it's gone. I like them to know the process because they know that farming is in our blood and it's in theirs as well.

Speaker 13:51

Yeah.

The Future Of Farming And Closing

Speaker 13:52

But I think from when you talk about it being in farming blood, you're finding that that's fizzling out because I just think the next generation just won't be going into farming. A lot of it's going to be a lot more technical. It's going to be from iPads and it's going to be a very different farming, you know, automated tractors and things like that than what we grew up with or ever knew. As our ancestors, I suppose, you know, grandparents getting from the horse to the tractor. It's moving all the time with technology, and they'll know it in a very different food production will be a very different world for them to what we've known.

Speaker 1 14:23

Yes, of course. I think things change all the time. Probably, like you said, if my granddad were sat here, he'd be talking about farming with his grandpa, you know, years on years ago. I think that's just generally life. Things change all the time. You can't guess what farming's going to be like in the next 20 years. It probably will look very different.

Speaker 14:41

Flying drones and running iPads, basically.

Speaker 1 14:44

Exactly. You might be able to actually almost drive a tractor from the office, self-drive track I don't I don't know, but things like that. But I still think it's nice that our children have got that chance to experience the farm now as they as they are.

Speaker 14:59

Cool. Thank you.