AgriCulture Live

Agricultural Education is Creating Tomorrow's Farmers Today

• Rebekah • Season 2 • Episode 22

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Have you ever wondered if you could thrive in agriculture without growing up on a farm? Paul Flynn's journey proves it's not only possible but potentially transformative for the industry. As Director of Agriculture at East Durham College, Paul entered farming without any agricultural connections, driven purely by his passion for biology and food production.

East Durham College's 476-acre mixed farm serves as a living classroom where students—regardless of background—gain hands-on experience with everything from traditional livestock management to cutting-edge agricultural technology. "We're split quite nicely between arable and grassland, so a student coming here will see all of the enterprises," Paul explains, highlighting how this comprehensive approach prepares students for diverse career opportunities.

What's striking is that approximately half of the college's students come from non-farming backgrounds. This diversity isn't just welcomed—it's essential for the future of farming. As Paul notes, "Of the 10 best farmers I've met... a fresh pair of eyes, someone with a different point of view, with a sort of business sense" can transform agricultural operations. The college bridges this gap by offering multiple entry points, from beginner courses to advanced programs, with free transport to ensure accessibility.

The agricultural industry faces significant challenges—an aging workforce, technological transformation, and economic pressures. Yet these challenges create opportunities for newcomers who bring fresh perspectives. Modern farming increasingly revolves around data and technology, with tractors featuring digital interfaces that might appeal to tech-savvy young people. "You're not just driving a tractor anymore, you are a real technologist," Paul emphasizes.

Whether you're curious about agricultural careers or looking to shift industries, there are multiple pathways into farming. Connect with your local agricultural college, reach out to Young Farmers, or explore your existing network for farming connections. With employment rates at virtually 100% for agricultural graduates, there's never been a better time to consider how your unique perspective might contribute to the future of food production.

Rebekah:

Hello and welcome to Agriculture Live. My name's Rebecca Shields. I'm one of the directors at Agricultural Recruitment Specialists. Now don't go anywhere. You don't want to miss this. It's a great episode. We're going to be talking about agricultural colleges and their role in getting more young people into farming, which is obviously an essential topic for the future of the industry. If you have any questions or comments, please post them in the chat and we'll come to them when we can. So, paul, would you like to introduce yourself?

Paul:

Hi, good morning Rebecca. Thank you very much for this. Great to be with you. So I'm Paul Flynn. I'm the director of agriculture at East Durham College, hoffall Farm. We're literally just a stone's throw from Durham University and Durham City. Our highest field, mount Joyfield, overlooks the cathedral. It's an amazing place. It's about a 15-minute walk from Durham train station.

Rebekah:

Fantastic. So, Paul, how did you get into agriculture and the industry and why All?

Paul:

right, so it's a confession time. Okay, so, hands up, I'm not from a farm. Okay, my dad's a brilliant joiner, but not a farmer, quite a king gardener. We had an allotment and an interest and I grew up at the edge of manchester at sale, uh, before the m60. I'm very, very old. I'm sort of walking in the library or something, but it's um, you know, we, um, I don't know.

Paul:

I was so keen on biology at school, I really enjoyed that and I had a brilliant teacher and Mrs Smith and she's still around. And that is the question is what do I do with that interest? It's really kind of passionate and I got as far as sixth form, college and still trying to wrestle this question, and came across the UCAS handbook literally the first page, agriculture, first year, go to a farm in the first year. And I just thought, wow, that's me, I'm gonna go and do that. And I had a lot of years at school and I was very, very fortunate having really just one decent contact in farming. I wrote to Jean and Burdett Parker up in Cumbria please can I come to your farm for a year? And they wrote back and said no. So I tried again and said well, can I come for two weeks please. And they said, okay, we think we can cope with that, you know, so I'm completely. They didn't know me. It was a very distant connection which was really fortunate to sort of make. And after three days they said, well, okay, so you're staying for the year because I I'd work with my dad and sort of learn to look after other people and support them and kind of look ahead of what they needed next and support somebody who's working hard and needs a bit of help and and they like that. And they had two young kids hello, chris, age two and a half and one. So I I was able to actually move into a spare room I don't know how they put up with that idea and actually learned a lot about actually being part of a family a young family at that as well and spent a year working farming in a beef and sheep farm just outside Penrith, ellenby Bringall House Farm, quite a famous farm in some respects, and I was given such a gift of.

Paul:

I keep going back and thinking, wow, how would someone do that for you? So I work with Bernard every day. He always said, look, I wouldn't let you do stuff. You know that I wouldn't do so. Generally we work together. He showed me the ropes. I saw the entire year through and as part of university you had to keep a diary for the year and I quite enjoyed that. It was quite a reflective thing to do and a very powerful thing to do. I say to any young person thinking about farming you know, just just grow something, just grow a few lettuces, just do anything you can. But but try and sort of make a habit of keeping a diary and thinking about your future and kind of what you can learn each day. That's been a big part of that. Sorry, long answer.

Rebekah:

So what was it about?

Paul:

farming that really sparked your interest. I think the contrast of kind of all this amazing technology which kind of has come back to haunt me. But I just felt that the other subjects that were at the time becoming extremely technical, that if I couldn't grow food for myself, I couldn't actually fundamentally produce enough food to feed myself and my family. Then there's something of a disconnect between society and kind of where I wanted to go and I thought, well, you know, that's what I want to do be able to produce food. And because for me it was a complete unknown really, I just found the whole thing fascinating working with my first block of sheep, first cows, and every day was just fascinating. And of course in farming every day is different and even if you're back on the combine the next day, it's a very different situation different moisture, different, different crop, different scenarios. So I just couldn't resist it and it's so. It is just so diverse. You have to kind of get pretty good at most things in some respects to be a good farmer.

Paul:

I'm not saying I'm the best. But that also appealed as well, that you could bring all your kind of. You know all of your kind of. If you've got some skills, bring all of those to the, to the party excellent, so you work for east durham college currently.

Rebekah:

Tell us about the college for those that don't know. So the colleges.

Paul:

So our main campus is next door, across at peter lee, and we serve upwards of about six to eight thousand students any one time. An awful lot of those are adult part-time students and we offer a huge range of courses to them. That's my plug. But we also we specialise really in 16 to 18, so we're a further education college. We're not officially, we're not part of the university, we're a separate entity altogether and we focus really on the jobs that we think we can give young people that provide, you know, know, real long lasting skills.

Paul:

You know, sort of going back to the old apprentices style of working, so that when you leave us you've got something that you can keep for life, a skill you can take probably all around the world. And it's been a complete gift to me. I've been able to travel around the world and do all sorts of things, you know, with that farming knowledge. But we offer the entire range of land-based courses here at hoffle. So everything from sort of arboriculture to forestry and animal management and, uh, countryside management, land and wildlife and, of course, agriculture and loads more besides.

Paul:

I'm sure I could spend all day talking about those, and so so we're quite unique in that that we offer those sort of land-based practical skills and and something that you, as I say you can take with you. We also offer a really quite a focus on the individual. So we support every student with a professional coach. So we're looking to really think about who who you are, and what we can do for you and how we can help you on that journey, and we do, by and large, achieve at the very highest level in terms of added value. So if you come to us with whatever set, of.

Paul:

GCSEs you have. We will always try and add more value to you and your future and we'd say we're probably pretty good at that and of course we offer also the A-levels and the rest of the subjects as well, back at our main campus as well, and where do your students tend to come from?

Paul:

we, we recruit from quite a big area. Actually it's funny. People will travel. You know, you, we are pretty unique. There are colleges north and south of us but for a long distance there's nobody else, and so we actually provide free transport to all of our students. We make that commitment to them so that they you know some people will travel for well over an hour to get to us, and so from the East Coast, from way up in Northumberland, from down into Yorkshire, and so you know, we're not afraid to reach out and attract those. We don't yet have accommodation to hand we are talking about that and trying to get into some negotiations about that but we offer free travel and they come from all over and county Durham and Gawande.

Rebekah:

Oh, fantastic. So for those embarking on studies, why should they choose East Durham College rather than the other colleges out there?

Paul:

There are other colleges. There are, yeah, other colleges available, but obviously we're the best. And I have worked elsewhere. I have worked for some of the other colleges as well, but I mean, I suppose to be fair to all of them, you know it is a unique offer. We are quite at some distance from each other as well, so we're not really competing with each other.

Paul:

But I think one thing I would say about this farm is we are, we kind of offer everything. We're a really good mixed farm and we've got the beef and the sheep and we've got the arable, but we've also got the pigs as well, and we're developing a horticultural offer as well and sort of field veg thing as well. And the campus is amazing. It is probably the most outstanding college campus you could come to. It's a real, genuine family feel to the place. I think the professional coaching that we provide also kind of gives that wraparound service to a young person. We know that they're precious to us and to you and to their parents. We respect that. We work very closely with parents and family and guardians as well. So and I would say, look, if you're not sure, then go and see your local farming college, go knock on the door and come and see us.

Paul:

We all have open days, open evenings. This time of year we open up on a Saturday morning and you know, come and have a look at what we do and you know I would say, yeah, do you know what? Go and see the other colleges as well and see what they can offer you.

Rebekah:

Fantastic. So you've got a 476 acre farm at the college.

Paul:

Tell us more about it. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, fantastic. Farm um was established in 1938 as a part of the the then war effort for the second world war to try and generate, you know, some, some guarantee of food supply, uh, try and address the local need, and that's that's still the case. We're still looking to try and make sure that the british farming can offer what the customer needs. And, as I say, we we've got. We're split quite nicely between arable and grassland, so a student coming here will see all of the enterprises, the arable. We're sort of quite again quite prepared, for the sake of the students, to take on a whole range of different crops. So we will always grow, you know, wheat, oats, barley beans, fodder beets, stubble turnips, and we're trying really hard to diversify our crops and I suppose most here introduce something a little bit different this year. Although we're a very low-lying farm, we do tend to get a frost. We are trying some maize this year. Fingers crossed, that should be okay. It can get frozen off at the end. We know that we're going for a really early variety, hoping to get out of jail pretty quickly before the October half term and so and that's kind of one side of it been very fortunate in teaming up with um, with our engineering colleagues, so we've got a land-based engineering facility on site and we've pulled in all the local apprentices for that and that team supports the farm as well on the livestock side we've got.

Paul:

We've got our own suckler herd and largely anglers cross suckler herd about 30 cows and do really really well getting well through carving.

Paul:

Now we come from february onwards and very much grass-based, very much looking at a sustainable approach to farming. We want students to go away with a form of farming that they can take with them, something quite low cost, quite regenerative, based on a clover sort of grass lay and a little bit of fertilizer in there, but trying to back off a little bit from that and again reduce costs and become more dependent on a grass-based system. The same with the sheep. We've gone down the road of an Inimus sheep, so that's this sort of hybrid variety of different breeds that's been brought together to really give us again a very robust sheep that can be quite self-reliant. We're over halfway through landing. We're and poor farm team have been up till half past one I think it was the night before last and a real, real storming days at the moment and that's going really, really well and we're gosh. We're well over, I think, 200 this year. Last year was 236 percent banning, so it's going really well. And then the pig unit, which is a bit of a people think it's a bit of a favourite of mine. It's not. It's just that it's kind of still quite new to me. I suppose I'm only four years into working with pigs, but they are great to work with.

Paul:

We focus very hard on trying to really offer us an amazing animal welfare. I know it's a farming position, I know what happens at the end, but whilst they're with us we want to give them the best experience we could, and so we work very hard on feeding, on spacing, on genetics, on just trying to improve that herd. It's a really popular facility, you can imagine, in January, february, march, because we normally farrow every third week on three-week cycles. So for a student coming in at any time of the year, they can see farrowing and the whole process of production at any one time. And for our colleagues across the animal management and other courses, it's something there that can provide teaching and learning all the time. It's just a great facility actually. And you know, watch this face we're looking. I'm looking around the corner at my budgets and looking at is it time yet to introduce poultry as well and to develop our fuel patch a little bit more as well?

Rebekah:

Okay, so out of curiosity, how many students do you have from non-farming backgrounds?

Paul:

Yeah, so I was thinking about this because you were very kind and gave me that question earlier and we're actually about half, I would say. I say it.

Rebekah:

You know which?

Paul:

is quite a lot. Actually, you know it's quite a big figure. But having said that, I think most of our students have at least some connection to it, and bear in mind I began with very little connection to begin with. So it is possible and what seems to work really well is young farmers, and the young farmer organization has been a great recruiter for us and a very sort of good, you know, good colleague, and so they're based here as well. They come here on Monday nights and if any of their events on the county, if they want a location, we always offer that for free. They're always welcome to come here. Their stock judging day, they're kind of whatever they're doing, we'll always base that here and but we're quite happy to take students on.

Paul:

We offer if they like, if they, if they, if they have, you know, a sort of good set of grades and they've got the farming experience, we're straight on to level three and we're we're into the deep end and really getting stuck into our farming. If not, we can start with a level two course, which actually is a really nice course. It gives you that time to develop your interest and start those skills and, and you know, begin from from almost nowhere. You know, I um, I was just doing a little bit of helping out a few weeks ago with some, some machinery and tractor driving, and you know, it's okay. If this is your first time, that's all right. And what we often find is that within the class we've got quite a mixed ability of students and they do learn from each other as well and we do encourage that.

Rebekah:

So don't be afraid, and so you know. Compared to, say, 10 years ago, are there more now from non-farming backgrounds, or is it quite stable? Where are you guys at?

Paul:

Oh gosh, good question. Yeah, I think there's always been that interest really, but I suppose because we are right on the edge of the city and because we I don't- know we are where we are, and because we're offering free transport, I suppose we do tend to attract students that have the interest, but may not have that connection to begin with, but they do do very well.

Paul:

I mean the, the employment rate is pretty much full. There's nobody out there that wants to work, that hasn't got a job. You know, we've got agencies talking to us and looking for staff.

Paul:

We had you know, and that's across the sector, not just in in agriculture, but in in the arbor side, in our boriculture, we had a chat field last week from from Canada who is recruiting for our arborists. So that was that was good to see and and yeah, look, we'll talk to anybody I'll get. I get phone calls all the time looking for students, looking for someone to can work on farms. We are, if you like.

Rebekah:

I suppose, rebecca, we shouldn't be competing with you, but we do tend to pass pass names and numbers on yeah, sure, and so what roles do colleges have in terms of getting more young people into the agricultural and farming industry? Paul.

Paul:

Yeah, I think it's pivotal. I think we're probably best placed to give a student that chance to be you know kind of all they could be in terms of farming. It's a pretty technical field, isn't it? It's kind of a it's quite high risk, it's quite it's quite high technical sort of requirements, and if we can't do that, then we're letting the industry down.

Paul:

That is our job, and it's not just about actually having that knowledge and understanding, but also that kind of that enthusiasm, that sort of that desire to be up in the morning early and get out there and do a shift and deliver some work and add some value. That's kind of what we're trying to show our students, and we do that across all the subjects. We're trying to sort of develop our own farm in a way that actually they can walk onto a farm and think about making a difference of, you know, reducing costs and making production kind of based more on a clover grass lake, for example, with more technical grazing, where actually we can improve the grass productivity at very little cost indeed. And but yeah, that's our job is is, you know, and make sure the industry is, you know, look, let's, let's open the doors. It's a great industry, it's somewhere where you can come and join us. You can go and after, after being with us and a lot of students do do this they will jump on the next plane to new zealand and australia and really enjoy that, and that's becoming almost the the done thing.

Paul:

It's kind of in in my day. You did that after university. Now it seems like after college and perhaps before university you might go and do that. So so I think you know we we're out there with the county shows. You know we've got a presence online. We've got some pretty good social media and folk involved, some good marketing teams. You know, if students are out there, and perhaps not just local to us but to other colleges, I'd encourage them to think about it. It is, you know, something that I think is a bit of a hidden gem that there is a job that actually involves being outside, working with animals. You know growing food. It's such a relevant job. I mean, it's fundamental right, so you're never going to be out of work.

Rebekah:

Do you manage to get into schools?

Paul:

We do. We have a team yeah, we have a team going out to schools all the time, and I'm sure that the other colleges are doing the same thing. Look, we have to market ourselves. We're not averse to knocking on the door and saying, look, we've got this amazing campus. It's a shame I can't take my, well. I could actually take this camera and show you a little bit if you like. And you know, let's celebrate these colleges. They are, and they have been for some time, under threat. I think we've lost, sadly, almost half of the colleges in sort of in my lifetime.

Paul:

It's not my fault, but you know, it's kind of just been a very difficult field to be in. Further education hasn't always had the best funding. We're doing a little bit better now, but it is a challenge to keep a farm going whilst teaching with it and giving students the opportunity to try all this kit and be involved in this and to farm in a way that gives them all these different choices of all these different enterprises. We don't specialise, because we want to give students that range of experience.

Rebekah:

So attracting new talent into agriculture. Why is it such a big issue?

Paul:

I guess the obvious answer is that we are an ageing sort of community. I'm 61, I'm now in that bracket I used to talk about and kind of getting towards the end of my career. Hopefully I've got another ten years, I'm hoping, at least. I think I'll always be fine, and so that's an issue where we're getting old guys. Come on, come take our places and be careful.

Paul:

What you wish for, you know you may find, actually, that you knock on the door of farming, you may well get a job. We do need you and, and so you know that's that's the biggest issue. Also, I think it's becoming a more technical place to be and that now that might actually attract young people. If you sit in, sit in our our biggest and best practice and we do have the whole range we'll give you a nice old-fashioned matthew ferguson or an older version of every single version of that tractor. But we've also got the t5, the t6, the t7, new hoands, and the first thing you see is a screen. You know you've got your iPad on the side and it's that that you're driving with. You know you're not just driving a tractor anymore, you are a real technologist. You're going to integrate all that we know about that field and connect it together in terms of satellite technology, in terms of soil samples.

Paul:

You know we are going onto the field each time with a real strategy, loaded with huge amounts of technology. And even the same with the livestock, actually with the pigs and sheep and cattle. Everything nowadays is driven by data and we've made some big improvements because of that. So actually, you know, that might actually, I hope, be an appeal to some younger people that they'll have a relevance and a kind of, you know, a sort of real, refreshing sort of approach to farming that can really help us. You know, I'm a dinosaur in some ways. I'm not too bad on technology and I'm okay, I'm kind of keeping up with it. But we I think most of us struggle and we would like that help and I do see some of our students going out there and they lead on that aspect.

Paul:

They're able to take over the record keeping you know the kind of the settings on the tractors, all of that technology is kind of grist to their mill, you know. So it's good.

Rebekah:

So, as an industry, how can we attract more people into the sector?

Paul:

Yeah, it's a great question. I think it's always going to be a challenge. You know when, when you know, I think, what? Something like Rebecca, you're a little bit 90, but is it something like 2% of our, of our workforce in agriculture? It's tiny and it's a shrinking field. I think in some ways. Having said that, you know, we we're getting some quite sort of bigger businesses and I do think that actually we've got to think about these young people coming in for the first time. For the first time you've got to create an environment where they want to come and work for you.

Paul:

I think one of the barriers might have been that often it's seen as being very long hours and continuous work. I mean, one thing I've tried this year is to offer to our youngest members of staff a four-day week, so something like Sunday, wednesday or Wednesday, saturday. They cross over and swap notes on the Wednesday, but that would give them kind of still a 40-hour week over four days and I thought that would be the way to help to connect to younger people. In reality they're quite prepared to muck in and sort of fudge that little bit, but that was the offer that I made. But I think elsewhere, in other farms. You'll come across that there are farms out there that are trying very hard to make life on the farm really quite palatable and quite good to be on. I was with a dairy farmer recently and I'm sure he'll recognise this quote, but he's got a poster in the bedroom and it says nobody milks twice a day and I thought, wow, that is just what a difference that is compared to many of our farms.

Paul:

So you know an enormous farm with hundreds of cows and you're milking at 4 am and probably about 4 pm. That makes for a hugely long day. And here's a. Here's someone saying look, that doesn't have to be the case. I've now got a farm big enough where people can specialize and we can share that work out, and I think that's a really nice model. I see that elsewhere in the pig industry. You you might just work with, you know, with weaning or farrowing or service and dairy farming, the same, I'm sure, sheep farming too. So we've got to think about those models of working. It's not always about what suits us, but actually you know, if you've got the right person in front of you, how can you retain them? And I think, talk to them. I think you know, understand them better.

Rebekah:

What are their red lines? You know they've got a thing on a Thursday night that they really want to go to. Okay, we can work around that. Could the government do more? I mean, there's lots of petitions about getting farming and agriculture into schools as a subject?

Paul:

Yeah, that would be wonderful, you know, I think that would be amazing. The government I think you know I'm not going to get into politics, but I think it's always great to have support. And I think you know what's been encouraging for us in the last couple of years is the funding has been a little bit better. I think, honestly, we've got somewhere to go with that. I think it would be nice to think that at the end of the year we're not quite so challenged by funding. And I think you know there's been a lot of changes going on. I think you know there's been a lot of changes going on. I think we've got to really think about, you know, what is the core offer that we're making, the current sort of position where we've lost a fair bit of our funding and we don't really quite know where we stand in terms of, for example, the sustainable farm incentive. You know that's not good for farming, it's not good for knowing where we stand, and I'm doing a budget now for next year. You know I really couldn't tell you in some respects where that might go. I don't know. Clarity is key If it's bad news, I'd rather have that sooner than later. I think the government could be a bit clearer about that. I'm no expert on educational agenda, but I do think that, you know, if we could make sure that the curriculum is connected to the reality of jobs and things it could do. It was quite a leap of faith for me to recognize that biology actually is kind of farming, and I think when we speak to young people they're doing this very binary sort of three or four a levels and I think they find it very hard to connect that to to a real course. And the other thing that's perhaps in our favor is that at 16 years of age people can come to us so that by 18, they've already got those skills and they can go from us to university in much the same way they can do with A-levels. So can the government do more? Yes, I'm sure it could. I don't think it has the money, but I think it could facilitate that sort of environment. If nothing else, I would say, for for me it would be the price point.

Paul:

You know, for some reason the gearing, you know the way that we get paid, is just frankly quite punitive. You know we we spend so much time producing amazing, amazing food. You know we're, we're trying our very level best to produce a bread making wheat, beef, lamb and pork that is just gorgeous and and produced in a really sustainable way. I mean the pork, for example. We go to market at the end of the day. We were selected and bred these pigs same with our cattle, same with our sheep. We've nurtured, we've seen them birthed and raised in a really vulnerable period and then we've grown them. We've got through those difficult times, those first six hours, those first two days, and we go somewhere, you know, a year or two years down the road. And, for example, with the pork, you know we're kind of barely getting two pounds a kilo and I can't help but think there's a bit more room in the market for us.

Paul:

And I see the price of stuff in the supermarkets and I know that's a kind of well-worn argument that perhaps we could find a better margin for ourselves. But you know, we, we are price takers, we, our systems are geared up to produce. We, we can't back off. We're a long way down the road and the market knows that, it knows that we can't really go back to the farmer, the projects. But come on, let's have that system a little bit fairer, please, and let's see the farm get, come on, at least a third of the price, if not a great deal more, I think. And I look I've been very fortunate. I've worked for farms that have gone retail and in some respects you know that can't be the case for every farm, but but that can be quite transformative. I was very, very fortunate working for a dairy farm that sold yogurts back at university back in Wales and you know I could see the difference it could make when you get more of that price.

Rebekah:

So why is new talent so important? Why do we need people from non-farming backgrounds in the industry?

Paul:

I always say this, but I think of the 10 best farmers I've met, I've met a few, some amazing folk out there. I mean well done. The industry is, frankly, I mean it needs so much more credit for what it's done. It is an incredible industry. There's nobody out there surviving now that hasn't done their time and really thought and worked so hard to get to where they are. But I think you know a fresh pair of eyes, someone with a different point of view, with a sort of business sense.

Paul:

You know I heard a farmer the other day that you know, good farmers don't always make good business people and I think, coming at things from a business angle, you look, you know, for example, um, you know, mr dyson, one of the most successful farmers in the country, didn't? He had a good, strong world upbringing in the countryside but wasn't really from a farm. So so a, it's possible. And and b, you know, when you've got that perspective of someone who looks at farming from a completely open point of view, look at where that can get you. You know, and I think perhaps we're a bit timid about thinking for a young person do you know what? At 20 years of age, you can become a farmer.

Rebekah:

That is possible and so if a young person is open to finding out more about the industry as a potential career, what advice would you give them to start today?

Paul:

okay. I think I think a really good first point is you know, look at, look at who you know, look at what your contacts are. Is there somebody in your wider family and your wider connections that you can reach out to? That's always a first-hand connection. It's really worth having fantastic network. You've got a record number of contacts. I thought I was doing well with a couple of thousand, but you've got I think you've broken all records there. So there is a way in through that.

Paul:

And I think you know the colleges, as I say, the young farmers, you know, speak to them. That's a nice way to get out there. And I tried an advert at one stage and put something out there. And I say to my young people too you know, you've got a. What about developing your linkedin profile and saying this is where I want to go? And speak to your local, then farmers union as well. That's perhaps another way in and but I think most of all I'd say speak to your local farming college, because you could start a level two farming course and and you know, arrive without that experience and and they will help you find it and if you can't get it straight away, they'll give you a bit of backing. They'll give you a tractor driving course and a telehandler course and get you started.

Rebekah:

Fantastic. And so, in terms of the future, what's your hope, paul?

Paul:

Oh, wow, what's my hope? I just hope that young people get the same opportunity. I think you know I was very lucky, perhaps a bit privileged, to get that start, but I just, I just hope that we can keep things really, really equal, that no matter who you are, coming up to any college in the country, you get listened to. We understand your perspective, your difficulties, you know perhaps there's issues there around access and transport and finance. Even getting a pair of boots in the well is quite a big ask to turn up with all the kids. I just hope that we listen to the person at the back of the queue as much as those at the front and give everyone that opportunity and show them look, this is a great place to be.

Paul:

You know, I've had honestly thank you, I've had such a sort of gifted career in terms of being able to join the civil service, being able to, you know, work with a charity, work all around farming and, and, you know, be careful what you wish for. I got this phone call five years ago and, paul, would you like to become director of the farm and the commercial operations? Wow, you know, thank you for that. It's um, yeah, so the?

Rebekah:

question I ask all of my guests is what do you think are the biggest issues for agriculture going forward?

Paul:

yeah, okay, gosh, so many, and you've raised a few already, I think. I think getting that workforce renewed and reinvigorated and restarted, that's a, that's a constant, I think, and finding those people that really have that gift of, you know, both being able to sort of work hard and think hard at the same time. And I think for us we've been looking very carefully at sustainability. I think I want to see this farm able to really go down the next sort of 100, maybe thousand years in a way that sustains that productivity. We're working very hard to reduce our environmental footprint, to recognise that the consumer wants that, to adapt our farming techniques so that we are much more considerate of, for example, we have the river Weir on three sides of us. Our catchment sensitivity is key and we've done a lot of work with Weir Rivers Trust to try and understand that risk that we offer, that we could be, and I think I was the first farmer for a while to invite Environment Agency to come inspect my farm and said look, come on, come and challenge us, come and make us better. And I think that's something we've got to do as farmers and make sure the public understands our commitment is there as well.

Paul:

We've worked very hard on welfare and so I hope and I think that all of our livestock really are kind of nurtured in a way that is, you know, look, it's not a sort of a one-man band. We've got a great team here. The farm staff are fantastic. We've got two different vet companies, one for our pigs, one for beef and sheep. I've said to both teams I almost want you in charge, I want you to really lead and push us as far as you can in terms of the welfare of our lifestyle. I don't want any question about what we, what we're doing. If our lifestyle needs something, let's do it, but let's work also very hard on preventative techniques. Let's try and build animal health really seriously, and I think that's something that we have to think about.

Rebekah:

Absolutely so. We've had a question from Rufy, let me just get it up. Rufy Peterson says good morning all. I'm Rufy Peterson, careers manager at TIA, the professional body for the agricultural horticultural industry. I've submitted some other questions, but can I ask you if you have any plans to do the T level in agriculture, land management and production? Do you see any barriers to this qualification.

Paul:

OK, well, hi, Ruthie. Well, the good news is we're doing it. So we started this last September and it's it's a brand new course for us and we're just putting it through its paces. And you know, yeah, it's. It's similar in some ways to the previous technical diploma. It's not a problem for us. We were given some funding for that, which was helpful. We've renewed a lot of the machinery. So you see the farm now a decent newish combine tractors equipment. It's going well in that respect. I think there are some challenges, and I have challenged the T Level provision. I think we need to think about, over time, improving it and making it more user friendly. But yeah, it's not a problem, we are doing it.

Rebekah:

Thanks, paul, what a great discussion. You've definitely highlighted some great things for us to consider for the future of the industry and also appeal, hopefully to more students to look at this as a career path. So thank you so much for your time today. Also, thank you everyone for watching and listening. Keep following us. We've got some great new discussions coming up. If you have got an interesting topic in agriculture you'd like to talk about, please get in contact with me via agricultural recruitment specialist, which is wwwagrirscom, and if you would like to hear any more on new issues and topics within the industry, please follow us on various channels, including spotify, youtube, apple podcasts just look Agriculture Live. So would you like to say goodbye, paul?

Paul:

Well, thank you, goodbye.

Rebekah:

Thanks so much for joining us. Goodbye.