Episode Transcript
[00:00:03] Speaker A: Good evening, everybody. The free prong boys are back. It's great to have you all back again for another edition of the free prong podcast with myself, Chris Flav and Neil. A really key topic that we're going to be covering tonight, which is something in farming that we definitely need to talk about more, which we'll come on to in a little bit. But to start us off, we will go with the good, the bad and the ugly.
So who has got the good this week?
[00:00:39] Speaker B: That's me. And. Yeah, so I got the good this week and then. Well, the good is. It's a really, really short good, but it's a really, really good good. The good is we've got a guest and it's just like you, the last six weeks we've been like, you know, us lot just chatting away us free, just going on tangent. And now the good is that somehow by hook and crib and Flav's connections, we've managed to get a guest who's going to be far more knowledgeable on this subject than us three. So that's my good. It's bloody brilliant. And that's where we're going.
[00:01:17] Speaker C: Jesus, Neil, you've got the bad, haven't you?
[00:01:21] Speaker A: Yeah, I'll go with the bad. And onto a more serious note. Yeah. Something that's affected my business this week. So for those that you don't know, I do quite a few different things. But one of those is I have a meat business, so selling direct to customers and restaurants and unfortunately this sort of abattoir that I have sort of got started with, it's called black brow abattoir in near Carlisle. Unfortunately, it's closed very short notice.
And, yeah, it's really the only sort of abattoir in north Cumbria, which covers a big area. There's a lot of farmers in that area and it's sort of the major abattoir for sort of pigs and beef and sheep and goats that anyone wanting to sell their own produce maybe have it cut up and sold to consumers or sell to restaurants or sell to local butchers.
And like many areas I know, many of you listening will also probably been affected by local abattoirs shut in.
And it's. Yeah, the government and farming unions and people tell us to diversify and go direct to consumers and things like this are happening. So, yeah, it's quite disheartening, I think. Definitely we need to get onto government to make sure some of these businesses are supported so they're there for younger farmers and those coming through with different ideas and different products that they want to come to market.
And unfortunately these abattoirs, whether it's struggling to get staff because of Brexit, increased energy costs, aren't making a business and are shutting and they're a really, really key part of the farming community. So it's a really bad situation.
[00:03:26] Speaker C: To add on to your bad. Actually, Chris, I was stuck at the Abbott today for nearly 3 hours for labor reasons and they've been struggling probably nearly every week now for the like the last six months. So in my usual fashion, I did a tweet and tagged Mark Spencer. And I told him that there's plenty of Kenyans that would jump at a chance of working on Alberto in the UK. So he needs to have a word with sweller to sort out those borders because it's like we know the problem, we know the solutions. We just sat there and then we seeing things going down the pan and we're not doing anything.
They're ugly is bad. It's actually bad squared. So on Saturday, I'm driving down from getting goats in Northallerton, about two and a half hours away. I get a phone call from the lady who we bought the hog Rose company from saying to me, hi, alright, yeah, cool. I thought she was telling me that someone had called her for hog Rose quote, because we still got her number on the trailer. She said, oh, I've just had someone call me to tell me that there's some pigs on the railway line.
[00:04:41] Speaker A: Geez.
[00:04:42] Speaker C: Like what? My stomach, literally, I'm driving, I can feel myself melting. It just started panicking and I was like, right, right, okay, thank you. I just call my name, my neighbor. So I called Barry, the pharmacy come out, Andrew. And I said, barry, you alright? How's it going? I said, could you do me a solid please? What is it? I said, could you send George, your son to go have a look to see if there's any pigs on the train tracks? Because I've been told that they are, but I'm not sure if that's the case. So he goes down and then I ring up the national rail, go through the thing, and the first thing that's ringing in my head is, what? Fine, am I going to get here? And the lady is really nice on the phone actually. She said, yeah, yeah, that's fine, take your details, blah, blah, blah.
George got to the farm pretty quick. Nikki's dad's only ten minutes away. He came over as well. Nikki was all, bless her, like 25 week or 26 weeks pregnant. Gets up to the field keeping the pigs back whilst George and her dad try to fix the fence.
When I got back, one of the trained people was here. So I went down with him to have a look at their fence and he was like, he got sent to check if the fence was okay and the pigs got through it because of our fence, then obviously they'll start looking at their fine. We get there and the fence is like four strands of wire with two foot of chicken wire. And I'm like, okay, well, they probably need to change this because a mile down the road where Barrist farm is, is a six foot fence by the railway line. So yeah, the next few weeks I'm going to be panicking that I'll end up with biggs on the train tracks again.
But the railway driver said when he saw them, he beeped and they all ran back in.
[00:06:34] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:06:35] Speaker C: Oh my God. But yeah, anyway, our guest today is a friend of mine, a lady called Amy Burke, that currently works at a company called Igde. And I didn't know about this company until you went there, Amy.
But me and Amy met when he worked in agriculture and he worked in agriculture for over ten years, I believe.
And now Amy is the inclusivity program manager at IGD and I forgot to introduce the topic. The topic is inclusivity in agriculture. So Amy, please.
[00:07:17] Speaker D: Thanks.
[00:07:17] Speaker C: Welcome.
[00:07:18] Speaker D: I love how I get to follow pigs on a train track. I mean, how do you come back to that?
And I love the idea that the good, the bad and the ugly. But let's finish with the good from now on because I mean, what a great one, Neil, the good is that we've got a guess. And your face just seems so elated that you've got a guess. And you forgot to add that the guest is a Brummie, a fellow Brummie. So that's I did.
[00:07:42] Speaker B: And I sit up there and this is a sign of our poor planning because what we should have said is also last was the good. And then it introduced into you. But you can sort of see, yes, a fairly brummy.
[00:07:54] Speaker D: I've saved you. It's okay. Seamless. I've saved you.
[00:07:58] Speaker A: If he's a Brummy, I'm Kevin Costner. Because Jesus, there is no brummy in that.
[00:08:04] Speaker C: That's what I thought. Listen to him.
[00:08:06] Speaker B: Listen to him from the rest of this podcast. I'm just going to slip back into my natural tongue and we'll just carry on talking.
[00:08:12] Speaker D: Oh, here we go.
Side bath. And we're done.
[00:08:18] Speaker B: But say what? We'll say what bath. We're going to have a quick bath up the road, isn't it?
And I wish it had been delivered because I bought a t shirt and it says, all right, bab made in Birmingham. And I found it on Etsy and I was so pleased I bought this t shirt. And when, when I was doing my bit of LinkedIn stalking earlier, Amy's from Birmingham. Why haven't I got this t shirt now? I've been wearing it and it was just brilliant. But no, unfortunately not.
[00:08:46] Speaker D: I need to invest in one of those t shirts.
I love that actually, Neil, because as soon as you said that, I felt this sense of belonging. So we're talking about inclusivity on this podcast and that is exactly what it is. It's about that connection that we all have as human beings where we really, truly belong. And it could be just something city like, you know, where we're both from. It could be something like, obviously me and Flav have an amazing love for strawberries. You know, it's that connection that you have with an individual. And I think it's really important that we share, that we share these things that we as individuals enjoy, love, are passionate about and don't discriminate.
You all mentioned you're good, you're bad and ugly. And actually, I don't think you meant to, but you all talked about labor within the good and bad and ugly and the shortages that we have in labour, in the agricultural industry. I've worked in the industry for a long time, primarily helping farmers with people problems. And it hasn't really changed over the space of 15 years that I was doing it. But one thing that people forget to look at is outside the net of agriculture.
I'm really thinking about, okay, if we really thought about not the stereotypical farmer and we accepted somebody a bit different on our farm, what are the possibilities? Like Flavio was saying, you know what? You know, we could bring in some people from outside the UK. How revolutionary would that be to solve the issue? But you're right, there are huge labor shortages. And what could we do to really encourage people to work in an industry that I found really interesting? I'm not from farming and I really found the industry interesting and still do. So what's the problem? Why people not just, you know, jumping at the bike to come in and work for you all?
[00:10:38] Speaker A: So, Amy, just so you say, obviously not from a farming background, so how did you get involved in farming?
[00:10:46] Speaker D: And it was a very big accident. So I would say I'm not necessarily academically gifted.
I could probably just work my way through my a levels, but knew I kind of wanted to do more. So I genuinely. There were some prospectuses in the college I looked through, found one that would accept the grades that I had and just so happened to come across Harper Adams, which doesn't sound like Harper Adams, let me just point out, he doesn't just accept anybody, but they didn't accept me.
[00:11:27] Speaker B: I started a degree at reading, but I didn't finish it. So there you go.
[00:11:31] Speaker D: But this says it all, so, like, you know, you don't have to do it, do a degree just to go to working farming. You didn't have to inherit a farm. There's many roots into farming, but. So that's kind of how I stumbled across it, went to Harper Adams. All my friends were farmers, so I just sort of accidentally tumbled into it. I remember my first day and there were chickens running around and I was petrified, thinking, how am I supposed to. How am I even supposed to concentrate here when there's chickens that, you know, I live in Birmingham, I've never seen a chicken. I was 18 years old and that's the first time I saw a chicken. And it's that sort of disconnect, isn't it, between people who really don't know where their food comes from and people who really know where the food comes from. And there's a kind of invisible barrier there. So that's how I got into the industry, you know, was at harbor for four years, did a placement year at Lloyds banking, and then just kind of tumbled into a career accidentally again, at the IHDB.
[00:12:29] Speaker A: Fantastic.
[00:12:30] Speaker B: Yeah, that's really interesting. Especially sort of like coming from.
Coming from, you know, where you come from, you know, that we brought, we brought up in Castle Bromwich. Is that your.
[00:12:42] Speaker D: Yeah. So born and bred, literally, here in Castle Bromwich, as I say. So there's a thing in diversity, inclusion, language called social mobility. So it's so effectively, I was brought up, none of my family went to uni, none of my family finished school. So almost zero education, free school meals, that kind of thing.
So for me, I was that kind of expected to not really do anything. Yeah, it's kind of like, you know what? She's just going to go off and do a vocational career or whatever. But I went on to do a degree. So from my area, it's. Yeah, as I say, it's not really hard for people to go off and do that kind of stuff.
I like to break the norms in many ways. So, yeah, I. From. From Birmingham and go into this industry where it really can't. I mean, I'm going to be controversial because flav loves it when I'm controversial. I find in agriculture, it really doesn't matter where you come from, so especially start my career when you don't really have confidence and you say, I'm from Birmingham and you literally saw people's eyes go, oh, what do you mean?
[00:13:52] Speaker B: You don't have to. What I'm trying to say is, you know, that's such a common thing in farming, though, isn't it? Because I'm not from a really. From a farming background. I was brought up in a council flat just outside Coventry and so I was the same. I went to college and I started doing farmers and it was the whole thing. They accepted me. But there's a lot of accepting before I got accepted. Does that make sense? You know, because I had to sort of prove my worth, whether that be from my work or my social skills, before I built those relationships. And if you weren't such a sort of driven or you had that sort of tenacity to keep going at it, it would be really hard to think, I'm not going to bother with this career. This is not. This is not for me. And I think no matter what, it doesn't matter what, you know, we talk about inclusive inclusivity, but I don't think that is important. But it's not important because we just have to include everybody, doesn't it? And that's what farming. We spoke about it a couple of weeks ago, didn't we? And we were talking about it and like Flav said, you know, when farmers are looking to recruit agriculture, we need to cast the net far and wide and we need to cast that net over places like Birmingham or. Or Newcastle, where you enter university or London or whatever, to get the best, because there'll be loads of good people in those places that would be such an asset to our industry and we're overlooking them and that's. I think that's really bad.
[00:15:09] Speaker C: Two points there, Neil.
I was going to say that has led us on nicely, to a point I put here about identity in that, like, the way society is now and something Amy shared to me earlier today. And it's the thing of, if you're introducing yourself, there's a way you introduce yourself rather than just say, okay, I'm Flavian, or I'm Neil, I'm Amy, I'm Chris, is the way people feel that they have to introduce themselves because of the way society is. And an example I give of this. Like in Kenya, if you meet someone, some people would introduce themselves and talk about their religion as well. So they say, oh, my name is Flavian and I'm a son of God. Or like to tell you that they're a Christian. And I've never had someone do that in this country. Whereas in this country you'd have sort of someone say, okay, oh, my name's so and so and I'm gay, or my name is so and so, and I'm this. Or someone describing someone said, oh, so and so, the black one or the asian one. And you think from Neil's point of saying inclusive to we just accept everyone. That's true. But I think for you to accept everyone properly, you have to accept that people are different. To accept everyone properly. Because if you just blanket the same, like, as a lot of farmers would say that, oh, no, it doesn't matter where you're from, it's fine. I don't care as long as you work. But you should care, because if I don't care about where you're from, I don't give a shit about you. So you have to care and understand, like, where you're from. Okay, Neil, this is stereotypical. Is drinking touches at the moment is from down that way. Like, if I've got someone from the southwest coming to mind, I will probably make sure I've got cider in the house because I know that's what they meant to drink. Scottish person whiskey. I know that's simplistic, but it's that thing of, for you to truly accept and respect someone, you have to care about them a little bit.
[00:17:12] Speaker D: 1 million%. 1 million. And I think that's. You're so right. And that's where it, that's where it comes from, is so, so the bit that missed out when I was introducing myself is I'm a lesbian. And that identity thing. So I would, I wouldn't necessarily go, hi, I'm Amy, and I'm a lesbian, probably because that's just me. But there are people who do that.
But it's that I. I used to think, no one cares. Why do you care about that? But actually people should care. People should say, oh, that's really interesting. So how did you meet your partner? Etcetera? Just like you would do, Neil, if you told me you're married, I'd be like, oh, fantastic. Where did you meet your wife? Etcetera. However, what we do get gay couples is how did you know you were a lesbian? When did you come out? Are you sure have you just not found the right man? And all these ridiculous comments that. So when you're trying to express your identity. I'm a lesbian. Like, it's black and white, there's nothing around it. And then people ask questions that come across judgmental.
Old a me, I'm trying my best not to do. It automatically gets defensive and thinks, how dare you ask me those questions? They're private questions, got nothing to do with you. Whereas really, what I should be doing is, okay, let me just do a bit of an educational piece. So you don't really understand that it's. For some people, it's not a choice. It's not. Oh, I decided on the 23 October 2014.
It's not really as simplistic as that. So I think identity is really important and caring is really important, but it's the curiosity over judgment. So instead of asking judgmental questions, it's saying, oh, fantastic. Are you happy to share a bit more about that or not? Etcetera?
[00:19:12] Speaker A: So this topic for me is a different one, because in farming, I probably come from the most stereotypical farming background. Parents of farmers, grandparents are farmers, grew up in a very rural area in Khumbu, were pretty much surrounded by farms that there isn't loads of big business and different things where people work. A lot of people have grown up on farms, so I've never really not fit in, in the farming community.
And I suppose it's like, I'm shocked there that those questions that you get, because I just couldn't believe people could. Could ask that question. But I suppose one thing is, it's like, I'm just thinking about my grandparents here and things like that in the farming community, maybe because it is. I'm not saying anything that you've.
Anything is right that's been said to you, but I suppose people are just maybe a bit shadowed from actually the wider. The wider world and wider issues and things that are going on, so they just don't know how to deal with it and they probably should, but they've just never really been in a situation where they've maybe met someone that's said to them, they're a lesbian before, so they don't know how to deal with it. Whereas if you grew up in the middle of Birmingham, you're more.
Yeah, I remember the first time I went to work for the NFU.
[00:20:51] Speaker B: In.
[00:20:51] Speaker A: Warwickshire, and obviously 200 people weren't there and there was quite a number of gay people worked in that. And I'd never really, day to day, be completely honest, being around anyone that was gay, and I was 21, 22.
It just never happened.
[00:21:12] Speaker D: That's like my story with the chickens there, Chris, isn't it?
Genuinely, when I first met farmers, as such, I joke about it, but I remember thinking, what on earth is everybody wearing? When I first went into Harper Adams, I was like, they're wearing tweed. They've all got wellies on, and we're in. What's going on? So for me, it's exactly the same way I judged people. I judged farmers. Put my hands up. I don't anymore because I think everyone's cool. But back then, I. It's exactly what you described. I lived in a bubble, an urban bubble, and I went into the rural area and made those judgments. I don't really get it. I've never grown up around this, other than watching Emmerdale, but it was quite different. Like, why is everyone like this? So what we do then is you sort of start to educate yourself on the situation, so it's vice versa, and then you start to. So something I used to do at uni was what we call cover.
So, I mean, I wasn't gay at uni. I was not that gay, but I used to cover. So I used to wear clothes that everybody else was wearing, so I felt like I should wear those to fit in, if you know what I mean. So I'd get, like, you know, tweed outfits or, like, get some wellies or whatever. And you just did what you did to fit into what would be associated as the norm. Then I'd come home at the weekend, and then my home friends would be like, what the hell are you wearing? Put your city clothes back on. And I genuinely had two wardrobes because you cover. And in the context of.
I still have two wardrobes now, to be honest. And in the context of being a lesbian in agriculture, it's exactly the same thing from a working perspective. Remember when I started my career and when I did come out and everything, that wasn't the person I was at work. At work, I was Amy Burke, who didn't really talk about my personal life because it was no one's business. I was there to just do a job. And then outside of work, I was Amy Burke, who was a lesbian and whatnot. And so I think people that. What people don't understand is the impact that has on an individual. So to be so. To go to work and not be yourself and feel that you've got to consciously watch what you're saying. You've got to cover to fit in. So, you know, you colleagues are talking about that fit guy from that band or whatever, and you're like, yeah, my God, he's so sexy. Wow. And really you're thinking, I couldn't think any worse. And you're, like, just constantly covering. And I think as much as I can talk about it from a lesbian point of view, where I've felt so many times where I didn't fit in, the three of you will almost definitely have your own story where you felt you didn't belong, you felt that you had that sense that I've got to be something else that I'm not. I've got to cover. I've got to be something else. And the feelings that that has on you as an individual, the kind of oppression almost to different extremities, and then think about that from a perspective of your family member. How would you like them to feel if they were having those feelings, they didn't fit in. And to the extent of discrimination. I mean, so we. So I sit on ag respect, which is a social committee for the lgbt community, community and farming, and it's been going for a number of years now and do some fantastic stuff, to the point that in 2019, we managed to convince Massey Ferguson to give us a tractor for a weekend, to drive it down to Brighton Pride, cover it in a rainbow flag as well, and take all these farmers into Brighton, which was brilliant. So same as kind of, you know, Chris, what you were saying when you first went to NFU at Stanley park and the shock of kind of a different. Different areas, all these farmers were very anxious, thinking, we're going into the city. We're going to get absolutely stoned to death because we're gay. But it was the opposite. There was just crowds screaming, farmers, we love you, etcetera.
Everybody was on the biggest high you can possibly think of. Everybody come away thinking, oh, this is what it feels like to be yourself, to be your true self and have no bars hold, because it's who I love, and what does it matter to anybody else? Like, why does anyone care who I love? What has no impact on your life? It doesn't change the way you work, doesn't help you pay your bills. Who gives a damn? Didn't know if we could swear on here, so I just say, damn.
But people do care. And that's the problem. The farmers weekly run a story, and the amount of hate and disgusting comments that that story got from bigots, from small minded people who genuinely have nothing better to do than comment on how we spent our weekends. So that's why it's important because these people need a real big education of the words that they're saying and the impact it has.
[00:26:26] Speaker B: I remember that. I remember that when that happened and I do remember the comments and stuff and the story that followed on from it. But I think it's like going back to what you said, everybody, you know, we all covers, I think we're not going to, you know, we all got issues where we cover. And I, and you sort of, like, you try and draw on some of your personal, my personal. And I saw like, Chris and Flav are doing the same, you know, like looking at, you know, what we're talking about in our own personal experience. Like, remember being in college? So I went to college in the nineties, Warwickshire College. Welwich College was quite, it wasn't the most urban college. It wasn't a rural college. It was somewhere in the middle, to be honest, because, you know, we used to get a lot of people bus. I remember if there was people coming from Castlevania, you know, where you're from, those buses coming in from like, you know, into, from Birmingham, Coventry, taking people in there. So it's quite a big mix. But there was, you know, you think back in, and I had even 18 now. I was on my ABC to myself. I didn't know somebody was really gay or not. I couldn't really couldn't even tell, you know, I wouldn't know. I was just, I was really a naive, you know, young man. And I do think back, you know, you know, you go forward a couple of years time and then you meet someone you're at college with and they're there with their, you know, whether it be their husband or a girlfriend in a sort of same sex relationship and be like, yes, that's it. That made a whole heap of sense. Now that just clicks straight into place.
And it was almost like, in a sense of like, yes, I'm really pleased. I felt pleased for those people that they did feel the confidence that five or six years later that they can be open about their sexuality and they can do it. Because go back to the mid nineties, 94, 95, when I was at college, 96, you couldn't, there was absolutely no way they would have been stoned, literally, as you said, you know, and that's a real shame question about that, that.
[00:28:10] Speaker C: Point there, Neil, is that, what is it? And I've written, I've written a word here on my little, now it's going to be a podcast notepad. This one I've written here, neuroplasticity and it's. It's a word I heard this morning, listening to book called the Modern Midwife, because thought, we've got a kid on the way. I better. I better plan ahead and start learning these things.
And obviously not obviously, neoplasticity is the ability of the brain to be able to sort of learn and learn things. And the point you make there, Neil, that at 18 or 17 or 15, like, for me, was 15 when we moved to the UK, you don't think certain things in a particular way. And then when you're an adult, like you say, you meet the people that you're at school with or college, anything. Well, actually, that made sense. But what. What stops us at that age, not making a mockery of someone, and then adults who know you better are making a mockery of things or making stupid comments or whatever. And those ones that do these things online, when you meet them in person, they're the quietest little shits you'll ever meet. And he said, hang on, where's that energy?
[00:29:24] Speaker B: That's just a keyboard warrior, isn't it? Across anything. It doesn't matter what you're talking about. Inclusivity, racism, no matter what, sexism, it doesn't matter what it is. These people that. Who get off at night sitting on their phone, typing out abusive messages to people, whoever, whatever you are, whether it be me, Chris, Amy, you know, Flapp doesn't matter.
[00:29:42] Speaker D: Just really, it comes down to accountability, doesn't it?
[00:29:47] Speaker B: Yeah. If you're going to have a go at somebody, I'm very much, and I think we're probably all the same. I say to your face, if I've got an issue with diet, I will just comment. And it's just a thing of today's society, isn't it, where people can hide behind the screen and say these things, but the reality is they're not going to come and say to me what they might think about me or data flab or Chris or you ain't, because they'd be too scared.
That's the thing.
[00:30:16] Speaker D: It comes down to accountability, so there's no repercussions for those actions.
And until the social media giants do more about that, it's going to happen. So us, as individuals, we need to do more to build our own resilience, to kind of fight against it. And the biggest thing that we've got as a lgbt community, in the rural industry, in agriculture, is allies. So we have. So we can't fight all our own battles as much as we try. And you just. You get tired and you get hurt, of course, but allies are the best. So exactly what you just described, they are like, I don't care, but I'll stand up. So Flav obviously has fought many battles for many people via social media or, you know, in platforms. I've seen you sort of question things at NFU conferences and stuff and there's plenty, there's plenty like Stuart Roberts. So Stuart Roberts, he was, he came at Brighton Pride and he's there holding this flag now. He is the most, like, no one's gonna mess with him, let's be honest. And like, he's the straightest man you'll ever come across. And he's there waving the flag and standing up to anyone saying, you know, I've seen him, particularly having Twitter wars with people saying, why are you saying stuff like that? Like, I don't care. Why should you care? Just get on with your farming. Realistically, in agriculture we have enough challenges constantly thrown at you. You don't need to add another battle, another war to your plate. Just allow people. So I talk about. So in my job role now, so I talk with food and drink businesses. So just a little bit further along supply chain and I help them to work out how do we create these inclusive cultures. And I'll talk about everybody's diverse. Every single one of us is diverse. Just because you're a white, heterosexual, cisgendered man doesn't mean you're not diverse. And the more we understand our own diversities, the more we can empathize with others. So when you start realizing. So, for example, Chris, being from up north, you know, that's a diversity in itself. And you want someone to start.
[00:32:35] Speaker A: But.
[00:32:35] Speaker D: You wouldn't want someone to start slagging off Cumbria, because that's.
[00:32:39] Speaker A: No one knows where it is.
[00:32:43] Speaker D: It's what makes you who you are, isn't it? Because it's. It sits right in your heart. What makes you who you are, it's the stuff that you love.
[00:32:50] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:32:51] Speaker D: So we're all diverse. I just really understand in, you know, there is no such thing as the norm. It's completely gone, you know, same sex relationships are now becoming the norm, etc. So anyway, I went off on a bit of tangent there, but the important thing is we all need to educate ourselves on our own diversities. And as soon as we step back and go, I don't really fancy being discriminated against for my love of vegan food, for example, so I'm not going to discriminate others.
[00:33:18] Speaker A: But I should mention it comes to that, though. And the one thing with you just mentioned vegan food there, the one thing that frustrates me about that is, is I, like, again, I don't really care, but anyone wants to be vegan. I've got quite a lot of. Don't know if I've got actually got any vegan friends, but I've got a lot of vegetarians.
[00:33:41] Speaker D: You respect people's choices, Chris.
[00:33:46] Speaker A: And I do get people that don't want to eat animals.
Like, if that's what they believe and that's what they want to do, completely, fine. I. But what annoys me sometimes about those people on social media that are vegans, it's so anti what other people want to do and like that.
[00:34:10] Speaker B: But that's not just veganism, is it? I mean, you could say about some religions, you could say that about a lot of religions, actually. You could say that, you know, obviously about the vegan and thing. And you can say that about your football team, you know, you support, you know, I can see Chris there now, unfortunately, you support a team from Liverpool, you know. So you're going to have this opinion straight away talking of a football team that might live or Manchester or whatever, or like, you know, from where I support Birmingham City, you know. So are you a blues fan?
[00:34:43] Speaker D: Well, I'm not, but my girlfriend is, so now I am.
[00:34:53] Speaker B: But, yeah, so straight away. So here's a blues. But I'm like, oh, Aston Villa, I bloody hate the villa, you know, and I can, you know, and all the rest of it. And that's that same thing, isn't it? It's no different, no matter what it. We talk about sexuality or sport or religion or food or whatever, isn't it?
[00:35:07] Speaker D: And I think, nailed it. Yeah, it's about not preaching, no matter whether it's veganism or, you know, imagine if I started ramming it down your throat saying, oh, this straight malarkey. What are you doing? You shouldn't, you shouldn't be with the opposite sex. You should be with the same sex. You know, it's not preaching. And another thing is, particularly on some of these things, is ensuring facts over fiction. So a lot of people get carried away because they've heard some nonsense, some fictional stuff. So, you know, particularly about diets, I'm not going to go on about the veganism, but on diets, you know, they'll read something and be like, right, that's it.
I've seen something on YouTube that's got to be factually correct and that has put me off food or I've seen something about the lifestyles of drag queens. That's a big one at the moment, drag queens are just trying to molest the children. No, they're not. But because there's a media story about it, people are automatically going down that fictional route over facts and then start protesting and preaching and trying to drive other people's behavior and choices. And it's like, just let just, that's your choice. That's, that's your opinion. Keep your opinion to yourself. Allow people to have their own opinions, and we'll all live a nice, happy life.
[00:36:25] Speaker C: So, Amy.
Go on, Chris.
[00:36:28] Speaker A: Oh, sorry. So, Amy, you've, you've talked a bit about how you lived a double life, and so obviously you didn't come out of when you were first moved into agriculture. So was there something that was an experience or something that happened, or did you wake up one morning decided, you want to be honest with everyone? What sort of led to you sharing that news?
[00:36:56] Speaker D: So, I think so. I was about 22 when I realized that I had a bit more of a preference to, to women. My girlfriend doesn't listen to this, so I was about 22, but as I say, didn't feel comfortable, confident. I think it's confidence. It's about your own identity.
I even got married. I got married to a woman and kind of kept that. I mean, I talked about it to my very close colleagues, but I've been on down farm tracks with real old school farmers who thought, what's this woman doing down my farm track? She's from Birmingham. She's not from a farm background. I'm not going to add in that I'm a lesbian because shit would hit the fan. So that's why I didn't really talk about it, because I had enough challenges and I shouldn't have felt that way. But that's, that's how it was.
But I turned about 30 and I got divorced, and I'd had, like, a bit of a burnout. I had a career which was international, so I was traveling to loads of countries constantly. And after about two years, I was just like, I'm done in. And that was the kind of epitome for me. I kind of hit rock bottom. And I was like, I'm sick of being like somebody that can't just be themselves and always trying to please other people, so I'm going to please myself now. And I went and worked back at HDB because it's this family community and it's got a good culture where I could be myself and then just started to build that sort of personal identity of. Actually, yeah, I'm comfortable saying I'm a lesbian now and sharing that story and sharing a bit more of my personal life. And honestly, my mental health accelerated, my productivity accelerated, because I was able to come to work and not worry about trying to put my cover on. I was like, here I am. That's that done. I can leave it at the door. Let's just work now. And now I've found a career that I'm just completely passionate about because I can just be myself and just talk about it and help others see that. And I feel like even just a couple of examples that you've all said this evening, I feel like you've started to really realise, oh, yeah, it's just like football teams or music or choice or taste. So that's the kind of moment for me. I think sometimes it takes them, like, hitting rock bottom to help you get back up. But hopefully the aim is that other people don't have to hit rock bottom to be themselves. They can just. I can imagine being 21 and you start your life in your career and you can just be yourself from that age and not wait till I later on in life.
[00:39:36] Speaker B: Really good point. What so far, what do you think we can do as an industry?
This is the thing. There's a lot of stuff, isn't it? You spoke earlier about taking the tractor to Brighton Pride and then got a bit of a kickback, didn't it? And all the rest of it. And it's like, how do we, as people in our industry, move it forward, move, you know, get this mindset altered so people were not, you know, looking at it in, you know. And I think it's, you know, looking at people, actually. Yeah, you've got to understand. I think flag made a good point earlier. You got to understand where people come from and you've got to appreciate that and you've got to understand that. But you also got to do that. You have to accept it as well. And that doesn't matter whether you're, you know, guys from Kenya or, you know, you're an openly gay guy coming onto a farm or, you know, coming on a farm or whatever it might be part of the LGBTQ community going for a job on a farm. It shouldn't. What does it matter? You know? And I think that's the thing. Message we need to get across, isn't it, to farmers, and not just farmers, but probably the wider industry as well, that. Come on, look, we're short staffed there as it is. Why the hell are we putting up these barriers? They shouldn't be any barriers there to employ people. We should be just looking to get people for the best they are.
[00:40:56] Speaker C: To add on to that before Amy suggests what we can do to bring some dark corners of the ag industry to 2023. Is that all this, the things we've been talking about here all link to mental health because we talk about humans. Like, I think there's times at the moment in society where we're trying to fix all these things in the. They're being done by robots. If we're not in a. In a. In a state that is healthy. And Amy talked about being rock bottom. If we're not in a healthy state, that the environment won't be in a healthy state. Anything else around us won't be in a healthy state. The animals, the everything else we do, our businesses or whatever. So the thing about inclusivity of humans and how people are seen by others, accepted, et cetera, being themselves, that links directly to mental health. And the thing that I don't get, and I always question it every year, is mental health week. People who talk about the negatives of mental health, who raise so much money about mental health, we'll see corporations and ag organizations talk so much about mental health, doing videos with jazz hands talking about it. And then when it comes to these other issues that fork off mental health, everyone's quiet and I'm like, what is going on in your heads? People come on. Like, if. If we were to fix inclusivity as a, as a wide subject before you delve into all the little bits, if you were to fix that, how. Imagine how sort of not easy but how much better the whole mental health thing will. Because yes, we've got financial issues which yes, we can control that whether we can't control whether there's a war in another country or not, we can't control. So we're trying to chase the things we can't control whereas the issues we can control, okay, accept Neil, from being from Birmingham, I kept crystal being a cumbrian accept aim for being a lesbian flower for being kenyan and black or whatever, those we can control what we're leaving all that and just every year chirping up about mental health a combined being driven to the other side of the world and back or whatever. And yet we still not an inclusive like industry is. It's madness. Amy, help.
[00:43:22] Speaker A: The Louis Capaldi thing shows we can do it. You look at Louis.
[00:43:25] Speaker C: Yes, we choose not to. Then.
[00:43:30] Speaker A: We.
[00:43:31] Speaker C: Like that was insane.
[00:43:34] Speaker D: It's easy to get behind someone you don't know that you can't help, when someone stood on your farmyard saying, I can't cope with this right now. Either I've got a mental health breakdown or I can't be myself. People can't cope with that face to face. I think the mental health and not being your true self are intrinsically linked to completely.
There's a few things to this, I think. Talking about three prongs, I think there is a three prong approach.
Farmers, as employers, are not trained to support employees. So IHDB, Mark and Isaac are doing some fantastic work around labor lifecycle, around how to be a real leader and how to support your employees.
There is so much more work to do. Back to the point that you've just made about it's a business. At the end of the day, focus on the stuff that you can actually change. There's loads of data that shows if you create this inclusive culture where everyone can come to work and just be the true selves, your team will be 60% more productive. 60. By doing nothing. You don't have to pay them anymore, you don't have to do any of these rewards or anything like that. You just have to create this safe space where they can be themselves and you get more from them. It's a no brainer. But farmers need more support on that because I've seen farmers who look after their cows and pigs flow so well, like amazingly well, and then you see the workers and they've got a toilet. So there's a. There's a lot of work around the. That area.
Once we sort that, we then become an industry people want to work in. So we've just had the labour shortage review done by John Shropshire, and there's a whole heap of recommendations within that that say, this is how we're going to fix this labour shortage. It's pretty much like a massive wish list. And realistically, we need a bit of carrot and a bit of sticker. We need stick because people just don't make changes unless there's going to be a law or there's going to be some repercussions. So there's a bit of that around it. And then the third leg of the prong, if it's a leg, is just us as individuals and more about our self awareness. As I say, the more we really, really understand that we're all diverse, the more we build our own validation and identity. I think it comes down to the more we think, actually, you know what? We're all diverse. So as much as it doesn't matter who comes and works for me because I'm going to employ on capability. I still care about that person when they're in the role and care about their mental well being and care about their personal life because we're all humans and we like to talk about that sort of stuff. So, yeah, three prong approach, I think.
[00:46:37] Speaker B: I fucking love what you just said there. We're all diverse and I think that just absolutely nails it. We are all diverse. I really think that just absolutely just like smacks it on the head, doesn't it? Yeah, yeah we are all diverse. And you go back the mental health thing and you know, we are farming mines hoodie because that's a charity I work with and do a lot around mental health and I'll always, and I'll always err on the side of them farm workers because I'm not a farmer, I start off as a farm worker. That's it. So I always look on and look at, you know, and I just think it's, it's just, it's a whole new podcast we could do again, we will do about it. But when you just look at all that and people. But it's really interesting because people who are, you know, in that sort of mental health area suffering from mental health because they can't be themselves and like you say, they can't be themselves, then they're not gonna, you're not gonna get the best out of that. That person. I think that's so true.
[00:47:41] Speaker D: Sounds like a new song that you three can create, by the way. We are diverse.
[00:47:49] Speaker A: Singing voice as well.
Yeah. I am the songbird of a generation. I have been till by the moment. Yeah.
[00:48:03] Speaker C: Amy, that was, um. I think we could definitely go on for way longer than we have already.
But I think this is way past your bed. Like, when's the last time you slept past our six?
[00:48:15] Speaker D: I think when I was on holiday a couple of weeks ago, but it was probably like 09:00 p.m. when you're.
[00:48:21] Speaker C: Yeah, when you're on the session now.
[00:48:22] Speaker D: In Egypt, it's the drinking challenge. I see how many drinks you can have in a 24 hours, but not tonight.
[00:48:37] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. Amy, thank you so much for, for coming on, especially at short nightish. And I think as three, we're probably not the best example of people that need, need a lot of the chat like this to change their ways or unlance certain behaviors. I think even us, we've. We've come away from this with new, new knowledge and more that we can do to spread the word and help or wake some of those sleeping dogs that exist in the industry.
[00:49:16] Speaker D: Yeah, let's wake the sleeping dog. I like that up.
[00:49:23] Speaker C: Cheers to that, Amy.
[00:49:24] Speaker D: Thanks for having me.
[00:49:26] Speaker B: Yeah, cheers. Thank you. Amydehdeh.
