I love farming. Every day is different and it’s good, honest work in the great outdoors. But it’s not just the job that I enjoy.
When city chief executives talk about their businesses, they typically wind up their soliloquies with that old cliché: “But really it’s all about the people.” There is an element of truth in such platitudes. Farmers are funny old fish, but beneath their weathered exteriors they’re just good people. I’ve met a fair few over the years.
Take “Sam”, for example. He rarely leaves the farm, telling anyone who’ll listen that he studied at the “University of Life”. He dislikes “town”, which is anywhere with a cash machine, and hates London (sometimes “that London”), preferring to hang out with his mates from the local Young Farmers’ Club (the YFC). Once a Young Farmer, always a Young Farmer, and Sam’s no exception—even though he’s now in his late thirties with two young children, and a stressed-out wife who doubles as the farm secretary. And did I mention that he’s machinery obsessed? Sam can tell the difference between a Sumo Trio and a Kverneland DTX from miles away.
Another farmer you’ll find at the YFC is “Jed”. Jed may only be 25, but he doesn’t mind lecturing everyone on how to farm, ski, drive or chase women. Fortunately, no one listens to Jed, who loves a drink and is self-obsessed. And with the booze comes what farmers call “pub yields”; those overly inflated farm records that are a tonne to the hectare more than anyone else, and go up as the drinks go down. Most farmers keep their farm business close to their chest. Not Jed: he’ll tell you how much land he farms and all about his other successful “business ventures”, all the time with an ale or snakebite in hand.
While Jed is buying rounds of Jägerbombs, “Gareth” is out in the field actually farming, or as he likes to call it “improving soil fertility”. Gareth is a nutty regenerative farmer, and when he isn’t shepherding worms, he’s always happy to talk—at length—about soil. He’s a soil obsessive, and doesn’t limit himself to boring people in person; he’s also on Twitter as @wormwrangler81 posting pictures of his latest experiment fermenting manure or chargrilling roadkill. For someone so obsessed with the environment, he has a huge carbon footprint from his time spent at shows across the country and abroad, where he stands in fields with similar knock-kneed anoraks while tasting algal brews.
Pronounced—or more often bellowed—as a single syllable, “Helen” is a ruddy-faced grazier (meaning she looks after sheep or cattle). Though slight, Helen can finish a pint in four seconds, carry bulky straw bales in all weather and easily catch large tups (male sheep) twice her size. She is also rumoured to have knocked Jed clean to the floor when he got a bit handsy at the YFC disco in 2013. As a livestock farmer, Helen is weather obsessed, using five different apps and tuning into the forecast at 5am, despite believing none of the predictions. Her speech is punctuated with whistles as she simultaneously calls for her sheepdog—except on Tuesdays, when she can be found in her second home, the market caff.
One of Helen’s best friends is “Brock”, an impeccably dressed older gent who hangs out with a gang of elderly characters with impossible-sounding names “at t’market”: “Alby”, “Mif” and “Woof”. Brock loves a story; he’s the farming equivalent of Del Boy’s Uncle Albert, but instead of talking about the war, Brock regularly drifts off referencing historical weather events: 1940 (extremely cold winter), 1947 (snow), 1953 (rain), 1976 (drought). Brock may be as old as the hills, but the years have made him wise, and it’s a fool that ignores his wisdom. He wears a waistcoat, tie and a cap with the odd grease stain in all weathers. Sadly, it’s often at the funerals of older farming characters like Brock that I learn just what wonderful souls they were, as stories are shared of their heroism, altruism and lifelong friendships.
It’s this camaraderie that brings farmers together, not only with each other but with the local community. You’ll find farmers out spreading salt in the snow and towing stranded cars out of hedges. They’ll move fallen trees, visit the elderly and think nothing of spending an evening encouraging others in local politics, or sitting up all night with a sick calf.
There are lots of things that I love about farming. But really, it’s all about the people.
