A CHAT WITH THE RIGHT HONOURABLE, LORD DEBEN.

[00:00:02] Speaker A: Hello everyone, and welcome again to the three Prong podcast. And today we haven't got one of the prongs, Chris, as he's tied up with something else on the farm, most likely, but you've got myself, Flavian Neil, and a guest that some of you may know, some might not know, but I think by the end of the podcast you know him Fairly well is Mr. John G. Or also known as Lord Dean. He's told me not to keep calling him Lord Dean all throughout the episode, so we're going to stick with John. So. Yeah. Well, welcome, John, and you, Neil as well. [00:00:42] Speaker B: Thank you. Thank you. [00:00:44] Speaker A: So with, with our usual tradition of the good, the bad and the ugly, who's got which one? I think, John, you should pick one as a guess and then we'll take the other two. [00:00:57] Speaker C: Right, well, which, where do I pick it? [00:01:01] Speaker B: Which one do you want? Is anything good, bad or ugly happened in the last week? [00:01:05] Speaker C: Well, yeah, good, good thing. A friend of mine who was taken to court in the United States, absolutely outrageously by Hewlett Packard won the court case. No one thought he'd ever do it. He won the court case on every single count. So I'm feeling very careful about him. [00:01:25] Speaker A: Oh, that's amazing. I hope you're going to be having a few, a few drinks or two for that tonight. [00:01:30] Speaker C: Well, once he's back on the. Once he's back from the United States. Yes. I mean, we thought he might never be back, but I'm very pleased and it's a very good thing for British, for, for Britain because he was a major entrepreneur and they tried to pretend that he had, he had cheated them in some way. And the American jury, which normally doesn't back foreigners, the American jury said he was absolutely right on every single one of 14 counts. So it was very exciting for all of us. [00:02:02] Speaker A: Wow, that's. Yeah, that's definitely a good way to end the week, I guess. Near. Which one do you want? [00:02:08] Speaker B: I don't know, you choose and I'll just go for whatever's left. [00:02:13] Speaker A: I'll go with, I'll go with the bad, actually. So like I said this afternoon, I've been trying to get the fridge unit of our butchery to work and trying to read a 42 page Italian manual and working how wires are. As a non electrician, it's not been going good and I'm hoping, fingers crossed, that I can figure it out somewhere so I don't have to pay an extortionate amount to get some engineer to come and spend Five minutes on it and make it work. [00:02:46] Speaker B: Yeah, electrics can be quite tricky, can't they? You get water, you know what's coming, you're just going to get wet. Whereas electric, you don't see that coming, do you? That just slaps you around the face quite quickly and it hurts generally. [00:02:59] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:03:00] Speaker B: So I'm left with the ugly and I can't really think of any ugly. I've had quite a good week so I don't really want to end the week on a negative note, to be honest. We're recording on a Friday and I really can't think of anything ugly that's, that's happened without jumping on any, any bandwagons. [00:03:16] Speaker A: But we can do another good then. [00:03:18] Speaker B: Do another good. Yeah, do another good. Well, the good is I've still got my tractor and I'm still very excited about my tractor. And I continue to talk about. I bought a tractor recently, John Massey Ferguson, little gray Fergie. Always wanted one. Childhood dream. And I'm still buzzing at the fact that, you know, a lot of men have a midlife crisis and buy a sports car and I brought a 70 year old tractor. So I'm looking forward this weekend to having a drive around the local lanes and annoying some people going at 11 miles an hour. [00:03:51] Speaker C: I'd love to have a tractor and so would all the family. We, we don't have a tractor. We borrow one next door for our farm but we don't have our own tractor and I want my own tractor. And you're quite right, I don't tract. [00:04:08] Speaker B: Get it raw. [00:04:12] Speaker A: It is a few months till Christmas so yeah, you've got a lot to save up to get one. So John, do you want to give us, give our listeners a bit of a, an intro of yourself for those that don't, don't know you. [00:04:32] Speaker C: Well, I'll start off. I live in Suffolk and we have a small farm which is an organic farm. We have red pole cattle which is the local breed and we grow arable crops on part of the farm and we put it all back to what it. The part which is nearest the house which we've had for longest. We put that back to what it was when the house was built in 1843. So all the trees and all the hedges have gone back and it's begun to be as noisy as it ought to be with all the birds and wildlife. So that's fantastic. And then I have to be in London middle of the week because I go to the House of Lords to debate things when it's when we're not going, when we haven't got an election. Obviously, there's a gap now. And I run a business called Sancroft, which I've started 26 years ago, which helps people all over the world become more sustainable. So we work right across the board from modern slavery and dealing with the supply chains in countries like India and Bangladesh, right the way through to a great deal of work on agriculture and food and trying to create a more sustainable food basis for us. And I enjoy myself enormously and I work very hard. [00:06:06] Speaker A: So with. You mentioned the House of Lords there. I've been in there once. What's it like being. Being in the House of Lords? Is it as chaotic as House of Commons? [00:06:20] Speaker C: No, I mean, I was in the House of commons for nearly 40 years. I mean, it was. It's much more polite and the debates are much better because, you see, most of the people in the House of Lords have been expert in something and we only talk about the subjects we know about. So I talk about sustainability and environment, such like, and Europe, because I'm a passionate believer in Britain being close to Europe and not being so stupid as to leave it, and human rights. Those are the three things I talk about. Then you don't talk about things you don't know about. And that makes much better debates altogether. [00:07:00] Speaker A: Yeah. And I get with, with Sancroft, do you find dealing with different or people from different cultures in different countries, you obviously got different time zones. How do you. How do you work with that? Do you find yourself sort of doing meetings at odd hours in the night or having to figure out how to, like, do a deal because of the other cultural difference, like, for myself, when I moved to the uk, I had to learn how to portray myself to people or explain myself in a discussion in a way that matches who you're working with? [00:07:41] Speaker C: Well, I think the most important thing is to be kind of polite enough to bother to get to know some of the issues with the people you're talking. So if you, for example, you have to understand that Americans think differently from Europeans. I mean, we, in Europe, we do think differently from the Americans. You've got to learn that. I've always been fascinated, for example, silly things. But Americans, if you have a percentage, they start at 50, we start at naught, they start at 50. So if you, if you go to an American school, you get 50 for putting your name on the. On the note, on the writing paper. We don't get anything for that. You can't be as tough on things like that with Americans, then they use words differently and they don't, and you have to learn that so you talk to them in a different way. And it's a great mistake to think that Americans are like the British, because we speak almost the same language. Well, almost the same language. We're much closer to our continental friends than we are to Americans who are just very different. So I think the first thing is you have to accept that other people are very different. And similarly, you go much further afield and you just have to realize that people are different. And this doesn't mean to say they're inferior or superior. They are just different. So you start by that. And I think accepting that other people are different and learning about it and being respectful to it, but not giving way in the sense of not trying to be like them, but just simply that you treat people as your equals but different. And I like difference. I always think it's a particular mistake to want everything to be the same. It's like equality, you know, women's equality. I want women to be equal, but I don't want them to be the same. I think it's always a mistake when you see people who really think that to be equal, they've got to be the same. We're not. We're all different, and we have to glory in our differences, but to recognize that people are different. And therefore, when I say make allowances, I don't mean that in a derogatory way, but I mean, we just have to recognize that people do say things differently, think differently. And sometimes you have to overcome those differences because they are not ones with which you can. Which you can accept. For example, I can't accept the way in which in some countries, women are treated as inferior. And. But you have to know that's how they do it. And then you have to organize yourself so that you don't allow that to be something that you're involved in. [00:10:46] Speaker B: It's really interesting what you say there. Like, because what you're basically saying and the work your business do, you're dealing with different cultures. And, you know, our culture in the UK is completely different to America. I spent some time in America earlier this year and I was. I was expecting them to be like, very much like what. What we are and they're not. And it was a real education for me. I was like, wow, these boys really are quite different. And. And we are quite similar. You say we are quite similar to Europe, but I think a lot of the time it's, you know, we need to Respect what people's opinions and values are, even if we don't agree with them personally, you know, even if that doesn't sit right, we just have to say, well, that's it. That's how they do things. [00:11:29] Speaker C: Yeah, I think we have to respect it, except when it's manifestly unacceptable. I mean, you can't accept Mr. Trump and you can't accept the ridiculous thing that all these people in America are prepared to support him. I mean, he is a, a convicted felon, he has behaved in an appalling way, he has dreadful views and if he were running the United States, it would be very bad for the rest of the world. You have to be very clear about that. And you have to be clear about that. Even though the thing that's so amazing is that so many apparently intelligent people should support him. But you can't allow yourself to accept that in my view anyway. [00:12:18] Speaker B: And that's a staggering thing because, you know, when I was in America, whenever it was February this year, it's just like wall to wall election. It's just like even though their election's not until November, it is just wall to wall going on. And, and you just like. But I was talking to a family member, a female family member and, and I was like, well, this guy's a complete enough to know exactly what you've, you've just said, John, it doesn't matter. And completely almost like, almost like radicalized to him. And I was absolutely blown away by this. So I just thinking with this guy, you know, I always look at the American politics, I know our politics are probably not much better, but I look at American politics and I think out of a country of several hundred million people, these are the two people that, you know, these are the best ones that you can find potentially to run your country. And I just think that just blows your mind to start with. I just think that's bonkers. And, and you just think to yourself, for God's sake, you know, why can't, why can't they see through that? But I think without wanting to sound really, really controversial, I think America is, is very much, it's behind us by about 200 years in many ways. And what I mean by saying that is they are completely, they are a very, very religious country and they are, you know, we've sort of had religion for a long, long time in the UK and we've sort of, and they are still really grasping onto different parts of religion that we were, we were grasping onto 200 years ago in the UK that's my opinion. And I think. And it's almost like they're sort of brainwashed to this sort of way. [00:14:00] Speaker C: Well, the tabuli, I mean, I think it's quite right that it's out of date. But you see, in the end, the religion that they have is heretical because it's a religion which is entirely personal. I mean, the teaching of the church, all the way down 2,000 years, the teaching of the church is that you have to respect reason, the Bible and the teachings of the church, and this is a balance. But they all went off into the Wild west, if you see what I mean, thinking that they had their own special relationship between them and God and the Bible was the bit they interpreted. They don't have any concept of what has been taught by scholars. They've got no concept of all that. And that makes it very difficult because if you try to talk to some of them, they. They bring what they call religion into it. But what it really is is a personal understanding of this. It's rather like talking to somebody who brings a personal understanding of brain surgery. I mean, you, you do. If you want to know about brain surgery, it's quite a good idea to go to a brain surgeon, actually. It's a good beginning. You don't actually decide that you know about it all yourself, you know, and although in religion, of course, it is a. There is a very important personal relationship which takes place. But you do have to be prepared to listen to 2000 years of research and theology and people actually knowing about it and saints and all sorts of others. You have to do that. You can't say, well, I know all about this, but I'm afraid Americans rather inclined to say that not just about religion, but about everything else. I know about it. And then they talk about. They talk about my truth. There is no such thing as my truth. There is the truth, I. E. What's right in circumstances. You know, it is true that there are. There are 60 minutes in an hour. You cannot say that. My truth is that there are 58 minutes now because that is not true. And the trouble so often in America is that they really do believe in my truth. And I'm afraid we've been catching it in Britain. So there's my this and my that, and, And I always thought, I mean, I. I understand why it. It's. It started and I entirely sympathize with its, its views that the Me Too movement. But it should have been us two. I mean, the Me Too is all this concentration on me and life is about concentrating on other people and not on yourself. The most dangerous sort of situation is when you think through just yourself. And that's the Trump problem, isn't it? He can't see anyone else, he just sees himself. And that's a terribly, terribly dangerous thing. And one of the teachings of 2000 years of religion is that the happiest life is the life that you lead for other people and the unhappiest life is the life that you lead just for you. You become a very bored, extremely in extremely boring to other people and you make terrible decisions. And that sums him up, doesn't it? Really very boring. Yeah, very much terrible decisions. [00:17:33] Speaker B: It does, it does. And not wanting to get stuck on American politics, otherwise this will be. We could go on for a long time. So obviously your background is obviously in politics and you've obviously worked like as you said, predominantly, you know, within agriculture in politics. If I'm right in saying that you've overseen or been part of some, you know, massive changes in agriculture in the last. If you. Yeah. How long have you been out of Parliament, John? [00:18:07] Speaker C: Well, I don't know. I think I was first elected in, when, when we won the election all the way back. I mean, I have to think back, indeed in 1970. I was in Parliament between 1970 and 1974 and then I was re elected in 1979. So 1970 was the first time I was in parliament. [00:18:35] Speaker B: And when did you come out of Parliament, move next door? [00:18:41] Speaker C: Well, I moved next door in 2010. I ceased to be elected in 2010 and went to the House of Lords. [00:18:50] Speaker B: Okay. [00:18:52] Speaker A: What attracted you to politics, John? [00:18:56] Speaker C: Well, I always wanted to do it. I mean, I can remember arguing with my father. This is why I know the date I was arguing with my father about the nationalization of the railways and that was when I was 7. And I didn't think much of the nationalisation of the railways because I said it would make all railway coaches and engines the same color. And I liked having different railway companies with different colors and different, different ways of doing things. I mean, this is a seven year old thinking about the issue and I love railways and I still rather think that the old railway companies were really very interesting. Now it's not a very good reason for not nationalizing or for denationalizing, but I do know at that age I was really interested in politics and I was happy. [00:19:59] Speaker A: And it's. So you are going forward a little bit from 79, you were Secretary of State between 93 and 97. If you think back to Your time then and what's being. Well, probably not a good time to compare what's been going on in the last 12, 18 months in that department of government. What, what are your, are your thoughts linking into agriculture? Obviously. [00:20:33] Speaker C: Not quite caught what one it is. Which department am I supposed to be thinking of? [00:20:38] Speaker A: Oh, sorry. So you were Secretary of state between 93 and 97 for agriculture? [00:20:44] Speaker C: Yes. Of agriculture. [00:20:45] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Agriculture. [00:20:47] Speaker C: Yeah. Well my, my problem with the present or the government? Present government is really that what they don't understand, and it's not just this government but quite a lot of governments, what they don't understand about agriculture is that it's a long term business and people, it's always a long term business and it's even long term in the sense of every year because you have to plant before you can harvest and you can't plant until you know what it is that you want to harvest. And you can't harvest unless you have looked after the plants. There's a, there is a degree of long picture that you've got to have even in the year most people live lives where you're making pretty quick decisions. Even businesses, you make decisions for the moment. You can't make those sort of decisions in agriculture. And of course you've really got to have a much longer view of what the circumstances will be. And the reason for that is first of all because only the farmers are the only people really for whom the weather is absolutely crucial. And you can't tell about the weather. The weather is something that constantly changes. You can be stuck like we've just been stuck with five months of constant rain. I mean last few days been the first few days we've had with no rain. It's quite remarkable. I didn't remember about having no rain then other periods you have months with no rain and farmers have to handle that. So their daily life is extremely uncertain. And that means that you have to provide for them some certainty. Which is why almost every country in the world has a support system for agriculture because we need the food and farmers need to have some sort of certainty. And the trouble with this government has been that it has changed the terms of support for farmers far too quickly and far too uncertainly. I still think it's difficult to know what the government is really going to do if this government were to continue. And I certainly don't know what the Labour Party would do because they are very uncertain themselves. I think the biggest issue that really worries farmers is the lack of the background certainty which support Systems provide. And we had that. Well, we had that since the wartime. We used to have a thing called deficiency payments. And then we had the Common Agricultural Policy, which was a different way of doing it, but it was basically the same system. You, you supported farmers on the basis of their production. And then suddenly we left the European Union. We told the farmers that we were going to support them in a different way. Now I prefer the different way, but you can't do that overnight and you can't do it in the short period that we've tried to do it. And you certainly can't do it without telling the farmers what you're going to do. And I as a farmer don't know what they're going to do if I don't know with all my history, the farmer who's never had that history, it's entirely unfair. So they don't know what to do, they don't know the terms under which they're going to operate. But they have to deal with the things which are always changing, like the weather. And I think that's terrible not to give them that certainty. And the reason they haven't been given that certainty, I suspect, is that I'm not sure the Minister knew what was going to happen. In other words, I don't think, I think this was a totally. They made a decision on a principle and didn't work it out. Now, if you're running a business, that's the worst possible way to proceed. You have to work out the plan and you have to know what you're going to do and you have to stick to it. And none of those things have happened. [00:25:05] Speaker B: Society is very short term and people don't like you saying that farming is a long term thing. It's massively long term. And society, unfortunately, you know, like as Professor Lee said, I think you made a brilliant thing on the podcast recorded earlier this week, is that we have so many, have so many time saving things in our life now. We should have so much time, you know, but we don't. We have all these things, all these devices in our kitchen that cook food in two seconds or do all this sort of stuff for us, and we should have all this time, but the reality is we don't have to. We don't, for whatever reason, we don't have this time. People had more time when they were growing their own vegetables in the garden, knew where the food comes from and all the rest of it. And I just think the problem with any government is that from my point of view, is that they don't view, you know, our food should be viewed in the same way as our military because it is security. We need to be able to produce our own food. And if we can't produce our own food and as the world's population grows and, you know, we, you know, this whole sort of thing, or we can import food, well, that's great. And, well, but as these countries import. As these countries that are import exporting food, I should say as their population grows, they're not going to want to export the food. They want to keep it for themselves to feed their own people, then if we're stuck there in a society where we can't grow our own food and the countries that we're buying the food from now are keeping their own food, we're a bit stuffed, we're going to get hungry. And, you know, we need to be looking at how we, you know, the environment's important, it's really important, and sustainability is important, but we need to be looking how we can maximize the food that we produce in this country to feed, you know, us as in the population of this country, because our population is growing. [00:26:59] Speaker A: That's a good point you mentioned. [00:27:00] Speaker C: I'm sure you're right and I agree with you. There's no contradiction in looking after the environment and biodiversity and growing the food. Indeed, one of the reasons that we find it difficult to grow food is, is because we have destroyed so much of the biodiversity which creates the balance which you need in order to produce crops and regenerate the soil and all the things that you have to do. I mean, this is a big argument, but the reality is we have denuded our soils. We have grown things through overuse of chemicals. We have grown things in a way which depletes the soil instead of regenerating it all the time. And that's what we have to learn again. But you're quite right. You have to start off by accepting that food security is very important. And I remember when I was Minister of Agriculture, the very first, I had an interview with a man called Peter J. Who was thought to be the cleverest man in Europe. And I was doing this interview and he said to me, well, we don't need a Minister of Agriculture, do we? Because we'll always be able to buy food from another country. So there's no reason to have a Minister of Agriculture. And that was the attitude they had. There was no concept of the food security. And indeed, I remember somebody whom I think is very good, David Miliband, was asked the question when he was responsible for agriculture. And he said the government doesn't have a policy of food security because we don't need one. And that was all parties. I mean, that wasn't just the Labour Party. I mean, that was all parties. People didn't understand the absolute necessity to ensure that we grow as much of our own food as we can and do it in a way which doesn't destroy our environment. And that's what the balance has got to be. And that's what the government was trying to be trying to do. But you can't do that unless you're very clear about your program, unless you recognize that it's a very tough thing for farmers who have never known a system other than one which guaranteed and supported production, but they've never known that. And then you ask them to change to a new system and don't give them the time to do it or the information about how you do it. That's the problem. It's not that we didn't need to make that change and the rest of Europe is making that change too, but they're being rather more sensible. They're having a lot of trouble with it, but they're being rather more sensible because they're moving at a slower pace because you have to, so that you can take people along with you. [00:30:02] Speaker A: Going back a bit, John, you mentioned about schemes and how sort of historically going through CAP and the things that the basic payment scheme to subsidize food production. Do you. So I now that I'm a tenant farmer, I've never had to claim basic payment scheme. And from how I understand it, it was essentially given to landowners, whereas the new schemes, now they're tied into someone doing something environmentally to then get payoff for that. But my. The bit I've got a problem with is that it's as if that some of these schemes are there to keep food prices down, which sounds okay, sort of on the top. If you're not producing the food, if you're having to produce food at a loss to then sell it for you, then to do something else on the side to make money on. And sort of anecdotes of people putting most of their farms on. On environmental schemes because it's paying more than growing food. I think this should have been a plan or some form of law or something that comes in regarding cost of production, where a farmer can make money on producing food or their main job, like a dentist does for cleaning teeth or sorting out people's teeth and not having to do anything else extracurricular to make money and then having a viable business, you don't have enough money to put back into a business and the environment you're living in. And you could get a bonus from the government. But I don't know why that's not a thing. [00:31:48] Speaker C: Well, historically, of course, that was what happened. I mean, there were schemes of recent years which were tied to a return on the amount of land that you had used, or whatever it is. But historically what happened was that there was a system which was supposed to and was best described as deficiency payments. It made up for the deficiency between the price the farmer got for his food for his production and the price that he really ought to have got. So the idea was that it meant that the customer was able to pay lower prices for the food, but the farmer got a. A decent return. That was the argument. Now, the cap was exactly the same, but it did it in a different way. And of course, over the years we changed the way in which it did it for all sorts of reasons. Like, for example, when we were producing too much milk because the production subsidies meant that it was so worthwhile producing milk that too many people produced too much milk. So we naturally changed it in order to overcome those problems. But the thing that's really important is that we really do have to think again about the price of food. Because what has happened is that modern technology and food subsidy together have produced a situation in which people expect to spend much less on their food than once they used to once upon a time. I mean, going back before the last war, people would spend something like 25% of their income on food, and it's now closer to 12%. And the effect of that, of course, is that they're very used to spending all sorts of money on all sorts of other things. For example, they're. Their housing costs are much higher proportionately today than they were in the time before the war. What people expect from housing, of course, is much greater too. I mean, we expect more space, we expect better housing, all sorts of things that distort this. But the point is, if you expect to spend 12% of your income on food, you don't want the prices to rise because you are not used to thinking about food as being as important a part of your expenditure. And so the problem is we have used subsidy to make people believe that food should be very cheap. And the reality is that food isn't cheap to produce and it won't get any cheaper. It's going to get more expensive and it's going to get more expensive for all kinds of reasons. But not least, that is the point that you made. Absolutely, Flavian, the point that you made, which is that we live in a world where food is going to be short simply because we've got bigger populations, and not only bigger populations, but people who are now able to afford things they couldn't afford before. So if you look at the standard of living in many of the developing countries that is rising and people expect to be able to have things which they didn't have before and have a better menu than they had before. So instead of living on subsistence level, they want better food and they begin to see other people having better food and they don't see why they shouldn't have better food. And I agree with them. But all that means that food prices will in, absolutely will rise. Now, governments have got to decide if that's going to happen. How do you ameliorate that? What is the way that you handle that? But what you can't do is to do what we're doing at the moment, which is to drive farmers out of production, which is what you're saying, Flavian, and that's exactly what's happening. We're driving farmers out of production because it isn't worth their while. And I was talking to one the other day who said to me that instead of growing rape, which is a very important, as you know, it's a very important product and we're very short of the oils that it produces, particularly because of the failure of the olive oil crop in the rest of Europe, he's worked out that it's much better for him to plant environmentally friendly cover crops, etc. And get the money for that than to plant the rapeseed because it's very difficult and it's rather expensive crop to do. Well, that's very frightening because that means that, for example, this year it looks as if we'll produce about 30% less rape seed than we did last year. And that's very frightening because we're very short of it. [00:37:15] Speaker A: And I think also on that point there, and this happened in recent times, less than two years ago, when I think it was India that stopped their exportation of rice to make sure that they've got enough. And I'm thinking as a country, because obviously coming from Kenya, for me, we need to almost only import things we can't grow here. Like, I know it's going to be hard, and it's easy to say in a conversation like this, but people need to go back to eating seasonally because There must be something. There must be some studies that have been done out there. Like being. Eating seasonally must have a link to nature and it must have a good thing with your health. Like, personally, I binge on strawberries when they're in season, but I don't eat any other strawberries out of season because I don't want to be eating strawberries from another country because one, they've probably been growing in polytunnels, which need way more water than we do here. So I don't know when they're going to start looking at that. When we're importing things from countries that are low on water. How, how does that sit on the sustainability and environmental, even ethics. So, yeah, I think it's something that whoever, whoever gets into power, they definitely have to scratch their heads a bit harder to try something. [00:38:32] Speaker C: I do agree with Sue's analysis. I mean, we've all got used to all sorts of ridiculous things, believing that we should have everything all the time whenever we want it. Now, that isn't sensible. And the only way you change that is that you will have to have an increasing difference between the price people pay if they buy things out of season from the ones that you have when, as you say, you binge on the strawberries. The other reason you binge on the strawberries is they're much nicer when they've been grown naturally at the right time of the year than they are when they've been forced. I mean, let's be clear about it. And so we have to think about. But I think there are three things that behavioral change that we need to do. One is that you rightly say recover seasonality, because the other thing that does, it recovers a joy in the food because you wait for the season and when it comes and you. And it tastes, it tastes so much better because of that. And you don't have this attitude, which I think is a terrible attitude, which is that somehow or other you deserve to have everything all the time. And actually that's not what life's about. Life's not like that at all. And it changes your attitude to the world, if that is what. So the first thing, you're right about seasonality. The second thing is that we do have to regain an understanding of quality. And the difficulty is, I mean, just take the question of bread. The proper bread is made of flour and water and yeast, and properly cooked bread is so. Is really wonderful. I mean, it's a fantastically good thing. I'm afraid that some of the things that Pass of bread today really aren't bread at all. And they're filled with all sorts of additions and bits and pieces in order to stop. Well, for example, to make sure it doesn't go stale for days and days and days. Well, the truth is we've got to be a bit more careful about quality. And that means the third thing, which is that we have to think again about quantity because everybody's too fat. I mean, that's the other issue. It's no good. It's no good. The fact is we have an absolute obesity situation. I mean, you walk along the road and you see people of such enormity and they don't seem to notice themselves. I mean they, you'd have thought they, you'd have thought they'd have noticed the front, but of course you see the back and that's worse. But the fact of the matter is we really do have to recognize that again, following the Americans, we in Britain have become fatter and fatter. Now we therefore got to think a bit about quantity as well as quality. Now part of that fatness comes from the fact that we are eating food which isn't good quality. That is certainly true. And there is no doubt that so called fast food, ultra high processed food, there's no doubt that there is a link between that and the growth of obesity. We don't quite know about it and exactly how it works, but there is clearly some sort of link of that kind. But it's also true that we all expect to eat so much more Now. I'm so old, I was brought up during the war and after the war. Now there are very big differences. We never snacked, we never ate between meals because there wasn't anything to eat between meals. We also frankly ate what we were given. So all this business about oh, I've got an allergy about this or I've got an intolerance about that. Now I do believe that some people have got serious allergies and we have to be very careful for them. But an awful lot of those people who say I've got an allergy just don't like that particular thing or want something else. And in, in history, even recent history, one person was in charge of the refrigerator. So they knew, usually the mother, usually the mother. And they knew what people ate and they kept a real sensible mothers, kept a real balance on that and made sure that people ate salad and green stuff and the rest of it. Now we, I mean when you walk through a street in a big city, well, think about going through London. I mean, there are all these shops selling food. We're eating and drinking. I don't mean drinking alcohol, but we're just eating and drinking the whole time. I mean, the amount of coffee we all put down and the amount of sort of buns and the rest of it we do. And we know we shouldn't. We know we are heavier than we ought to be. It's doing huge damage to our health. It's going to be true pretty soon that diabetes will be the most costly part of the National Health Service and we're not going to be able to afford it. I mean, we could spend the whole of the gross national product on the National Health Service if we go on like this. So my three things are seasonality, quality and quantity. And when people talk about the cost of living crisis, first thing I think we ought to say is that you can help to counter that by being much more careful about what you buy. Now, if you want to do that, then we've got to get that back into the schools. One of the other changes is that we used to teach people to cook. It always was part of the school curriculum. Of course, parents used to teach people to cook. And then of course, there was this great row because we were teaching girls to cook and boys to do woodwork. So instead of teaching them both to do both, which is what was sensible, we decided to teach neither to do either, which was just easier. And I just think I. I just think I tell you a terrible story. I used to have a little house in the very poor part of London by the Lambeth Walk. It used to be very poor. It's all become gentrified now, but it used to be very poor. And we had some very old shops there and there were a lot of people without very much money. And I always remember going into the butcher's one day and saying that I wanted to have a heart because I was going to have stuffed heart, because I rather like experimenting, see? And the butcher said to me, oh, he said, don't have stuffed art here, he said, don't have hearts here, he said, we have arts in our other shop, which is in Purley, which is in a smart part of London, but where people can cook, but here all they want are things that are easy to cook, like, like steak and, and, and chops and the rest of it. Now, all these are much more expensive and, and what you've got is that we didn't teach people so that no wonder they didn't buy, because they didn't know what to do. I went into our local co op the other day and I always look out for when they've got ham hock because a ham hock you can buy and, and it's very cheap actually and you get a lot of ham off it. You get about twice as much ham off a ham hock you buy like that than you would if you buy it in a plastic folder, so to speak. So I bought this and the nice person behind who got a lot of people working in the shop and they have part time jobs and the girl who was serving me said what do you do with that? And I explained and she said, well, I've never thought about that. Now I know that she was somebody who really needed to think about that. It made a difference to her. It would have halved the cost of the meat that she was using. Now I know about that because I've been educated by a mother who taught me how to do that. And I do feel that we must get back into education a much greater degree of talking about the things that really matter and the things that really matter to people is how do they make their budget stretch, how do they stretch their budget. Now that's partly teaching people about budgeting. Leave alone the food, about how do you keep, how do you organize yourself in that way and then trying to help people to know more about food. And the trouble is they're all very interested in it or you just see the number of people who watch the food programs on the television. But there are far too many people who haven't been given the opportunity and I'm a believer in opportunity. Education should be a means of giving people the ability to live in a more exciting and a better way. And part of that is being able to have the resources to do so, making your money go further. And then we also of course have got to be a bit more sensible about what we spend our money on. I used to find it difficult when you were. When I used to have to talk to people who were in difficulties and you found that they didn't have any idea about what are priorities, you know, what you should be spending money on and what is not quite so necessary. I don't think smoking is a necessary part of oneself. One spending, if you see what I mean. No, it's not. [00:48:40] Speaker B: But I think, I think it's up to a really good point. There is like we've talked a lot in the last series and you know, already in this one it's about education, it's educating, I think, not only children, but actually adults as well about, you know, where their food comes from. You can only get this food at this time of year and yeah, and look how far, you know, all of this food can go. It doesn't have to come out of a plastic packet. Food, you know, shouldn't come out of a plastic packet. And yeah, there's all the time. Everybody will, there will be a times when we're all in a rush, you know, occasionally and you will go and grab something easy because that's life, you know, and that, that is life. But the reality is that we should be able to have all these time saving gadgets that we've got, be able to create, you know, some good, healthy, sustainable food that doesn't cost the earth. I mean, without sounding absolutely bloody awful, I mean like I was watching a political debate the other day on television and there was a lady on there and I know this sounds horrible, but I wasn't, it's not in a horrible way. And she was talking about, you know, the cost of living crisis and all the rest of it. And the camera flipped round to her and she was talking about having to, you know, batch cooked meals. And I looked at her and I thought, you're not missing out on any meals, love. And I don't mean that in a horrible way. She was a very, very big lady. And I'm thinking to myself, hold on a minute, love, there is something fundamentally wrong here with your lifestyle. Now she might have had a medical condition. If she has, that's fair enough. But the reality is she probably didn't. And what she was doing was eating the wrong food. And you think to yourself, hold on a minute, there needs to be, you know, I'm, you know, my, my mum, I was chatting to my mum the other day and she's, she's, you know, nearly 80, bless her, and she's pretty fit still, all good and great and you know, Touchwood, she's an amazing lady. And she was talking about, you know, my nephew and how much, you know, that his salary and stuff. And she said, that's an astonishing amount of money. You know, what he. I, you know, and to her, because it was just like she couldn't believe this amount of money that my nephew was earning. And I sort of said, well, that's not, it's not that much, mom, honestly, in today's terms, it's not a lot of money. But she was like, I just can't believe it. I really can't believe that that's the case. And because my mum is of that generation, if you give her something, she will create a meal. She's a feeder. You give her some stuff there. You're not going hungry and. [00:51:08] Speaker C: No. [00:51:10] Speaker B: And I think, you know, because she's of that same generation as you, John, where, you know, she had to cook like that and do like that because she was born. Well, she was born just after the war and had to. There was no choice in that. [00:51:24] Speaker C: But the other. The other bit of it is surely this. If it. If you were here with me, if I. If I go out from. From here, there are quite a number of houses which were built for farm workers by the local council and they were all given big gardens because it was expected that you would grow a lot of your own food. Now we've just had lunch and we had a wonderful lunch based on the lettuces which I planted, because I always do lettuces. You can produce an awful lot of food in a very small amount of space. I mean, I'm lucky enough to have quite a lot of space. Sometimes I think too much when it comes to the garden, but you can do so much in a very small amount of space and then you get really good fresh food. So it's not just a question of, as I say, of quantity, quality and seasonality, but it's also. We all of us can use the small bits of land which very large numbers of people have. I mean, very large numbers of people have a bed big enough to grow some things. And we don't do it. We just don't do it. The number of people who don't actually grow anything in these gardens which were given to them as part of the council accommodation because they would. And you look at it, and I'm afraid some of it's actually been put down to bricks in order to drive the car onto it, if you see what I mean. It's not being used for what it should be like. [00:53:16] Speaker A: My mum lives in. Mum lives in Camberley in Surrey and they've got a fairly. This is small garden and mum grows things out of anywhere. Like, obviously growing up in Kenya, she. I remember taking two spare or two old Land Rover tires. She put tarpauling in the middle. She grows potatoes in there. She'll get a milk bottle, four pint milk bottle, cut it in half, she'll grow tomatoes out of that. And I think it's that bit of, like you said about when you were growing up, John. I think it's. Even though I'm. I'm much younger, maybe it's a cultural thing. I'm not used to snacks. Like I'll eat big meals but I don't snack. Maybe strawberries, counter snacks and I eat them by the keloid. But I'm used to having a meal in the morning and I remember back home that'd be something like starchy. So it lasts you to lunch. Then lunch you have another big meal with quite with starch in it too. And then evening you have another big meal. And it's interesting you say about how obesity has increased in this country. I remember even coming here when I was 15 and now 2006 compared to now 2024. I can see a significant difference too because I remember used to take my sister to school in the morning and as a 15, 16 year old I'm like, I never used to see people this big back home, like what's going on here? But then now in Kenya, like you've got KFCs in Kenya now. And I don't know whether it's the same now but the last we went to Kenya in 2022, it's an in thing. Not even sort of young people, a guy taking a girl or another guy on a date. KFC is seen as the in thing rather than eating the traditional foods. So this fast food culture has encroached into even developing countries like Kenya. And you can see men walking around with massive, massive pot bellies. But in a culture that is used to poverty, if you've got a belly, you're seen as you're doing well. Which. [00:55:27] Speaker C: I think that's one of the real problems. Historically of course it was true that the rich very often were like Henry viii, they were big and they were fat and the poor were thin. Actually one of the worrying things is that it's the other way around. Today you look at educated people who go to great trouble to keep their weight down because they know how damaging it is. And again you come back to education and I think also inspiration. You see the trouble is an awful lot of education sounds like talking down to people. You know, you're ignorant and I know and I'll tell you that's awful. But if you can inspire people to understand, gosh, how much better it is to have fresh things that you grow yourself to, how, how much better it is to use something which doesn't cost very much and yet turn it into something that really tastes wonderful, all those things are, are so it changes people's attitude. And if you look at some of the most popular foods, I don't mean the processed foods but the most popular foods, you know, Italian cuisine is very, very popular in Italian restaurants. Well, they're very basic, you know, pasta and, and. And the cheap cuts of meat ground up in order to make lasagna or all those things. These are, if you like, peasant food, which people made out of very cheap things, but they made it in a way which made them really taste good. And we've got to recover that. I mean, we've just got to recover the way in which and the joy of doing it. And it was the point. Sorry. [00:57:27] Speaker B: Yeah, I was going to say. No, I was going to say what you're saying about European food. You know, like, it goes back to what you said at the beginning of the conversation. Yeah, we're a lot closer to Europe, but we seem to want to be closer to America, even though there's a massive ocean between us. And they are completely different in many, many, many ways. And, you know, Europe, I think, you know, have it nailed on. On the food front. I can remember being in Italy a couple of years ago and ordering a meal and he said, seasonal vegetables. And the waiter came up and apologized to me and he said, I'm really sorry, but the only seasonal vegetable we got is spinach. And I said, that's fine. [00:58:02] Speaker C: I love that. [00:58:03] Speaker B: That's great. And. And I ate, and it was the nicest spinach I've ever, ever eaten. I mean, it probably had a ton of butter and garlic in it as well, but that's not the point. It was absolutely beautiful. And I'm like, great. I don't. I'd rather eat this spinach. That season, it's been growing around the corner than I would soon. That's been flown from Kenya or India or wherever it might come from, you know, And I just think to myself, yeah, we just need to get, you know, the European. I know we've left now, but we. [00:58:35] Speaker C: We should try. We're still. We're still European. We can't. We can't remove ourselves from our geography. And the truth is that once we get over this, this miserable moment when we somehow thought that everybody was foreign was. Was unacceptable, we'll get back to living with our neighbors. You have to live with your neighbors. It's one of the great fundamental things, you know, loving your neighbor means it is your neighbour you have to go to get on with. There's no point in believing you can get on with people a thousand miles away unless you can get on with people who are 25 miles away. And therefore, you've got to get on with the French, whether you like it or Not. [00:59:14] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Whilst you're still on food, I just wanted to mention, to ask your, your thoughts on this, John. Obviously as a, as a pig farmer, we like, we talk about food, food security a lot and we also know that there's a lot of food wastage, probably links to the whole thing about quality, quantity, even seasonality and then education. Because if people knew how to cook, let's say, probably even use like something like let's say kale sometimes you could get like a bunch of kale, you could cut the stem off. I didn't believe this. This was a thing. My mom told me you get a bottle, put the stem in water, it gets roots and it produces more leaves. So you can regenerate that. And if you time it properly, it's time consuming. And even though devices save us time, we're still time. We have a lot of time deficit. We probably reduce wastage in that way and many others, but we've got a lot of food wastage and we've got stock or livestock that could make use of this food. And I know historically we've got the Adamadca epidemic, But surely in 2024 we have enough intelligence in various facets of science and research or whatever, enough intelligence and money to be able to make food, wasted food, safe to be fed to monogastrics. So not sheep and cows, to pigs and chickens. [01:00:53] Speaker C: Well, I think, I mean, I think that the whole of history is a story of pigs being fed wastage. I mean that is how pigs have always been fed. One of the reasons why people kept things. But I think you have to start a bit further down the line. If people are taught to cook and taught about food itself, they don't waste as much food to start with. I mean, part of the wastage of food is that we buy it too cheaply, we shove it in the fridge, we forget we've got it, it goes off and we read the best before date and we say, oh, we can't have this because it's, you know, I mean, I have to say I'm not very good believer in the best before date myself personally. But in any case, but in any case, we, we have to be better at understanding the this way. Now you, we all of us talk one moment another about time. Now I'm fascinated by the way that we think that everybody is time poor. And when I think what people had to do in the past, if I think of the way in which people lived when it was jolly hard, I mean, you had to bring the water in from the well, you had to boil it up. You had to. When I think of my mother in. I mean, we didn't have much money, but we were comparatively. So we were reasonably off and. But she still had to do all the washing of the sheets and wringing it out through a ringer and all those things. I mean, it was a huge amount of time spent. I don't think we are time poor. What happens is that we've decided there are all sorts of things that we have to do. I mean, when you look at the amount of time that people spend on the Internet, who do it on social media, what they do watching television, if you add all that time up. I'm sorry, I don't think time poverty is really the story that we have. What it is, is we choose to say, I must have time to do all those things, which means I don't have time properly to prepare a meal. If you enjoy preparing meals, if it becomes an inspiration actually to make something really nice for your family and that doesn't matter if it's father or mother or big brother or big sister, then you're not time poor. You'll find the time to do that. It probably means that you won't spend quite so much time on Instagram, but I'm not sure that's not a good thing, really. Too much time on those things. I mean, when you think of the hours we know that people spend, the average person spends hours on the Internet. Never talk to anybody. All they do is to talk to people remotely. It's one of the saddest things. You go into a fast food restaurant, you'll see four young people sitting around. They're all on their. All on their telephones. They're not talking to each other. I mean, we're beginning to lose all the sense of immediate relationships and we're beginning to think that the time spent on those things are more important, the time spent on living real community lives. [01:04:24] Speaker B: It's good when you go to a restaurant, you might see somebody on a date and you see two people sat there quite obviously on a date, and they're sitting there. [01:04:37] Speaker C: It's not the kind of date I used to go in for. [01:04:39] Speaker B: I have to say, hey, well, let's leave it there. [01:04:45] Speaker A: Yeah. Last thing on food. John, you have a pub, don't you? [01:04:50] Speaker C: Yes, we do. Yeah. [01:04:51] Speaker A: I should be going to it tonight. Oh, we need to definitely make a. Probably season three. We can do a. A tour to your pub. What's your favorite? If I was. If I turned up to your pub as A first. So first time I want to have a starter, I mean and a dessert. What would you recommend? [01:05:10] Speaker C: Well, I would start with. If you. I'd asked what the soup of the day was because I love soup to start with actually. And we make very good soup. Again, that's one of those things that you can make from food that you have left over. So if, if we've served an not quite so much broccoli the day before. You make broccoli and Stilton soup. You know, you, you that, that's a sensible way. So I'd start with some soup if I were you. If you don't like soup, then we do a very good, rather nice little starter which is with a certain amount of smoked salmon and a few prawns and a mari rose sauce which is a sort of up to date version of prawn cocktail. But very nice. I'd start with that. And then as a main course, well, there is the lion burger. We have a particularly good burger which we make with, with, with very good bun as well as the good things in it. And everything's local, we do it all on a local basis. So that's that. So you could have that or I have to say I like sausage and mash and we have wonderful sausages from the butcher next door. Really good. And then we have, because we're not all that far from the sea, we have very good fish and chips. And then for your pudding, well, there's nothing like a, well, a sticky toffee pudding, the kind of traditional pudding that we serve. So what it is, is good pub food. It's not gourmet food, it's just good pub food. As local as we can make it. [01:07:00] Speaker A: That's one thing that's missing I think around, around. Well, especially where we are. But I find I remember like I said in the time I've been in the uk, think pubs have changed where you have some that striving for gourmet and don't get there and others that are just your standard pub food. Yeah, you get what you get. But what's missing is like you, you mentioned and I can think of another pub of our friend's mom runs it up in Yorkshire and chef Tony. Every time I went in there I'd say Tony, just give me what, what your best one today. And I've never had a bad meal in there. And it's just so homely. The chips are cut there like peeled there. Everything meat comes from opposite the road to the butchers. The onion rings are made there it's just. [01:07:49] Speaker B: Oh, it's quite close to sort of feed time now. And it's like always feeding time. My mouth's just like dripping now. Like, whereabouts in the world is your pub, John? Where exactly where is that? [01:08:01] Speaker C: It's in the village of Debenham, which is in Suffolk. And I have two rules. One is we want to say we don't own a microwave. That's the first thing. Everything is made properly on the spot. And the other thing is we don't talk about things being drizzled and all Jus. All those silly words. Yeah, all those silly words where people try to tart up their food. What we have is proper, sensible food. So at the top end of it you can have a good steak and wonderful chips and that is if you want that. But you don't have to spend that money because you may. Well, you could have. I love shepherd's pie is one of my very favorite things. We make extremely good pie. [01:08:52] Speaker B: It's all getting too much for me. [01:08:54] Speaker A: It's too much. [01:08:57] Speaker C: Well, I'm off, I'm off to have it with two friends of. [01:09:02] Speaker B: And we, we're, we're going to John's pub, that's for sure. Because I, I, I'm a massive fan. John of. And I love the fact that it's one of the growing things in the UK agriculture is, is that we're growing a lot more wine here and we grow some fantastic wines here in the UK and I did suggest that we could, we could go around many vineyards in the UK and really promote this because this is a real growth industry. So, yeah, that's going to promote your pub as well. [01:09:28] Speaker C: You could come. Well, you could get local wine, you could get local wines at the pub and a wide range of other things we do try to provide organic wines to. And the other thing is that we have about six beers on tap and they're all local, they're all produced within 50 miles of where we are. And the basic beer is produced in our own village and the cider is produced a mile away. So it's all very good and local. [01:09:59] Speaker A: That's at least, that's at least seven pints in a bottle of wine each then. Yeah. Oh, great job. Thank you. Thank you so much for your time. And I think I've still got three or four points that I could have asked, but I think it would end up being a three hour long podcast. So maybe definitely season three will, will pop down and visit and potentially even doing do another, Another. Yeah, another little chat if. If you're around at the pub. [01:10:32] Speaker C: Yeah, we could do a podcast from the pub. What a good idea. [01:10:35] Speaker B: Yes, yes, Good idea. That's. I'm all for that. [01:10:40] Speaker A: Thank you very much, John, and I hope you have a good weekend. [01:10:44] Speaker C: Thank you very much. And you too, both of you. Thank you. [01:10:47] Speaker B: Cheers. And thank you for your time.