Meet the Farmers

Image credit: Francesca Cooper Meet the Farmers is produced by RuralPod Media, the only specialist rural podcast production agency.  Please note that this podcast does not constitute advice. Our podcast disclaimer can be found here.  About Ben and  RuralPod Media Ben Eagle is the founder and Head of Podcasts at RuralPod Media , a specialist rural podcast production agency. He is also a freelance r...

Image credit: Lauren Johnson Meet the Farmers is produced by RuralPod Media, the only specialist rural podcast production agency.  Please note that this podcast does not constitute advice. Our podcast disclaimer can be found here.  About Ben and  RuralPod Media Ben Eagle is the founder and Head of Podcasts at RuralPod Media , a specialist rural podcast production agency. He is also a freelance rur...

Huge thanks to the Cultivate team for allowing us to record at the event. Meet the Farmers is produced by RuralPod Media, the only specialist rural podcast production agency.  Please note that this podcast does not constitute advice. Our podcast disclaimer can be found here.  About Ben and  RuralPod Media Ben Eagle is the founder and Head of Podcasts at RuralPod Media , a specialist rural podcast...

Image credit: Avery Wrigglesworth Meet the Farmers is produced by RuralPod Media, the only specialist rural podcast production agency.  Please note that this podcast does not constitute advice. Our podcast disclaimer can be found here.  About Ben and  RuralPod Media Ben Eagle is the founder and Head of Podcasts at RuralPod Media , a specialist rural podcast production agency. He is also a freelanc...

Ben speaks to Leigh Weston who farms in the Yorkshire Dales. Leigh is an ambassador for Curlew Action .  Image credit: Leigh Weston Meet the Farmers is produced by RuralPod Media, the only specialist rural podcast production agency.  Please note that this podcast does not constitute advice. Our podcast disclaimer can be found here.  About Ben and  RuralPod Media Ben Eagle is the founder and Head o...

Ben meets Cornish beef farmer Ben Thomas.  Link to Six Inches of Soil Meet the Farmers is produced by RuralPod Media, the only specialist rural podcast production agency.  Please note that this podcast does not constitute advice. Our podcast disclaimer can be found here.  About Ben and  RuralPod Media Ben Eagle is the founder and Head of Podcasts at RuralPod Media , a specialist rural podcast prod...

We take a look back through the podcast archive at 3 previous episodes.    Meet the Farmers is produced by RuralPod Media, the only specialist rural podcast production agency.  Please note that this podcast does not constitute advice. Our podcast disclaimer can be found here.  About Ben and  RuralPod Media Ben Eagle is the founder and Head of Podcasts at RuralPod Media , a specialist rural podcast...

Bal and his family run Vicarage Nurseries in the Vale of Evesham alongside his team of 10 full-time staff and 150 seasonal workers. Growing 1,200t of strawberries (4 million punnets) and 100t of raspberries each season on 136 acres, the business supplies UK retailers as well as wholesale and farmers’ markets. The farm and business have grown greatly since his parents first started it on seven acre...

Today we’re heading to Staffordshire to meet Anna Barton. Brought up in London and trained in interior design, Anna never imagined she’d become a farmer. Then she met her builder husband whose parents needed help running their soft fruit farm in Staffordshire, so in 2016 the pair moved there and Anna became an overnight expert in growing strawberries and running a busy café and shop. Canalside Far...

Today we’re heading to Herefordshire and Ben is speaking to Farmers Weekly’s 2023 Beef Farmer of the Year Ian Farrant who farms 600 acres of land on the Herefordshire/Worcestershire border.  Beef production on the farm is part of a larger family partnership which also includes dairy and arable units. Ian is responsible for the beef however and rears and finishes around 650 dairy cross calves on a...

In this episode Ben speaks to the former MP and MEP Neil Parish about his life and political career, including his final days in Parliament and the events that led  to his resignation in April 2022.  Neil has started a new podcast called 'We Can Do Both' which explores the ideas around producing food as well as looking after the environment. For more information click here (instagram page) or here...

Six Inches of Soil is based on the regenerative farming movement in the UK and follows three young farmers for a year. It also explores broader concepts behind regenerative agriculture and the soil crisis.  The film follows the stories of Anna Jackson, an 11th generation arable and sheep farmer from Lincolnshire; Adrienne Gordon, a small-scale vegetable farmer in Cambridgeshire; and Ben Thomas, a...

Today we’re back in the US, in the far north west, indeed nearly on the Canadian border and Ben is meeting a fruit farmer from Washington State. Kait Thornton grows 180 hectares (440 acres) of apples and pears. She’s a 4th generation farmer at home but also started her own fruit selling company ‘Kait’s Crates’ at just 15. She has cleverly used social media to build her business , starting with Fac...

Mike Duxbury is the co-founder of Inclusive Farm , along with  Ness Shillito. After a career in the wider agricultural sector and then at Vodafone, Mike saw the farm as his next step. Blind from  the age of 6, inspiring disabled people and people with special needs is Mike's focus, through the means of farming.  Meet the Farmers is produced by RuralPod Media, the only specialist rural podcast prod...

Find Zoe on Instagram here . Today we’re heading across to the US, to Ohio to meet 8th generation farmer Zoe Kent. Zoe grows 2000 acres of corn and soybeans and she has amassed a whopping 420,000 followers across Facebook, Tiktok and Instagram sharing her farming life. She graduated from college in 2017 and worked for her dad Mickey as an employee before becoming a partner in 2019 and taking on th...

Today we’re heading to Denbighshire in Wales to meet dairy and beef farmer Huw Foulkes. Huw was brought up on a dairy farm but was initially put off farming when he saw his father having to sell his herd. He got the farming bug at college though and ended up re-establishing a dairy on his family’s farm with a micro-dairy of 15 red polls. For his beef he crosses Welsh black heifers with Wagyu bulls...

Today we’re heading to Wiltshire to meet arable and beef farmer Ben Cooper. Ben farms 800 acres alongside his brother and father in the Pewsey Vale of Wiltshire, growing wheat, barley, oats and canary seed as well as producing hay and straw. As well as the cattle and the crops Ben has helped the family diversify into 'pick your own pumpkins' and Christmas trees, and he also works off farm carrying...

Today we are heading to Shropshire to the Oteley Estate which has been in the Mainwaring family for 500 years. Ben's guest is Clare Mainwaring who runs the 2000 acre estate with her husband Ian. Clare and Ian rear two herds of native British cattle – Shorthorns and Highlands, they have a flock of sheep and some pigs. They’re also not afraid of trying new things and in recent years have launched pr...

Niels Corfield is an agricultural consultant based in Norfolk. You can find out more by visiting his website - Home - Regenerative agriculture consultancy for farmers and landowners (nielscorfield.com) Meet the Farmers is produced by RuralPod Media, the only specialist rural podcast production agency.  Please note that this podcast does not constitute advice. Our podcast disclaimer can be found he...

Today Ben meets Rachael McGrath who is a dairy farmer based in south west Victoria in Australia. She farms with her dad and the herd is made up of stud Jerseys, Brown Swiss and some cross breeds. They also have sheep and horses on the farm.  Meet the Farmers is produced by RuralPod Media, the only specialist rural podcast production agency.  Please note that this podcast does not constitute advice...

Ben heads to New Zealand this week to meet Norwegian dairy and beef farmer Ola Utgaard. Ola farms in Lesja which is 2 hours south of Trondheim in Norway but is currently working away in New Zealand.  Meet the Farmers is produced by RuralPod Media, the only specialist rural podcast production agency.  Please note that this podcast does not constitute advice. Our podcast disclaimer can be found here...

For the last episode of the year Ben is joined by Sue Pritchard (CEO at Food, Farming and Countryside Commission), Stuart Roberts (Hertfordshire farmer and former Deputy President of the NFU), Jez Fredenburgh (agri-food journalist and knowledge exchange fellow at Agrifood for Net Zero Plus) and Ranald Angus (Caithness arable farmer) to round up the year and take part in this year's 'Big Farming Qu...

Andrew Court runs the family’s 275-acre mixed farm with his mother and brother. The rotation includes winter wheat, spring oats, spring peas and winter barley as well as oil seed rape. Andrew studied agricultural engineering at Harper Adams before returning to the family farm. He is also involved with the Institute of Agricultural Engineers, is the new chair of the Farmers Club under 35s committee...

Today we’re in Shropshire meeting farm manager Michael Kavanagh who is also a founding director of The Green Farm Collective, a company set up for knowledge exchange, to trade carbon and biodiversity and regeneratively farmed produce. Michael has also previously managed farms in North Yorkshire and Essex. In 2014 he transitioned 600 acres of the arable farm that he currently manages to zero till a...

Christmas is coming so Ben heads to Essex to speak to turkey farmer Paul Kelly of Kelly Turkeys.  Ben last visited Paul in episode 8 of the podcast in June 2017.  Meet the Farmers is produced by RuralPod Media, the only specialist rural podcast production agency.  Please note that this podcast does not constitute advice. Our podcast disclaimer can be found here.  About Ben and  RuralPod Media Ben...