Shrewsbury farmer helps councillor understand farming, talks about cuts to the industry and shares their love for Clarkson Farm.
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00:00 So I'm here with Andrew of Hall Farm in Crookmeal and Councillor Julie Buckley.
00:06 Guys, what are we doing here today?
00:08 Hopefully we're giving Julia a bit of work experience on the farm, teaching her a little bit about agriculture
00:15 and what makes us farmers tick and how little sleep we get and how hard we work and all the rest of it.
00:21 And what is the reason for you doing this, Julia?
00:24 Well, you know, we need to understand all the different communities if I want to represent them effectively
00:28 and we've met before, we've talked about the problems farmers face and really want to understand it first hand.
00:33 And what kind of things have you been up to so far?
00:36 We've been digging up silage, we've been checking on the cows.
00:41 We've really been discussing, the number one thing that's on our mind is the impending cuts to the Royal Support Service for the health checks.
00:50 And how is that, what is the approach to that?
00:53 Well, we started the health checks in the cattle markets 12 months ago and it's been so successful.
00:58 I think over 700 farmers have been to have their blood pressure checked.
01:02 And we didn't really want to see a reduction in the service, we wanted to really expand the service.
01:08 We're now doing every cattle market in the county.
01:11 It's taken us 12 months to get there, but budget cuts, we're afraid that we might lose the service if we're not careful.
01:18 We're certainly going to get a very reduced service and it's something that's at a time when the farming community really does need it more and more
01:27 because of the pressures on the farming community just at the moment.
01:30 We've all suffered through the food inflation and what have you, but we've also had an awful lot of inflation on farm.
01:37 Every cost that we have on farm has gone up.
01:40 Insurance, feed costs, everywhere we look costs have gone up.
01:44 We can't always recover the costs from the market unfortunately, so we've had to take a knock.
01:50 And margins are very, very slight at the moment, very, very slim if they're there at all.
01:57 So, yeah, it's very important to look after our health.
02:01 One of the auctioneers said, yeah, farmers are very good at looking after the health of their stock.
02:05 That comes first and foremost, but they're not very good at looking after their own health because the animals come first.
02:11 And if you don't put the animals first, you're not a farmer.
02:14 You know, it's not just their physical health. We've been hearing stories about mental health.
02:18 And so my message back to the council is we absolutely have to protect this service.
02:22 It actually will save the council and the NHS money in the long run because the sooner we can catch things, nip them in the bud,
02:28 farmers don't really have the time to get to the doctors, they're so busy.
02:31 And so bringing it to the cattle market is an ingenious idea and we need to keep it going as long as we can.
02:35 I know you've probably been asked this before, but I was a massive fan of Clarkson's farm.
02:42 I've learned so much more about the farming industry. Do you feel it's had somewhat of a positive spotlight?
02:48 Oh, absolutely. Oh, it's so fantastic because they all know Clarkson.
02:52 I mean, people either love him or hate him. He's one of these Marmite characters.
02:55 But even people that haven't liked him before think, well, actually, yeah, you know, fair play to him.
03:00 He's had a go. He's rolled up his sleeves.
03:02 He probably opened the floodgates with everybody else having a go, Vinnie Jones and Kelvyn Fletcher and all the rest of them.
03:09 But no, Clarkson's done a brilliant job. And, you know, Caleb, to put his perspective on it, has done an even better job.
03:15 I had a joke.
03:15 (upbeat music)