Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Hello and welcome to another episode of Free Pronged podcast.
It's actually two pronged again this week, because Flav, we're doing a bit of a. Bit of a relay at the moment. He's actually unloading some pig shelters or something as we speak. So it's myself and Chris. And we're delighted to be joined this evening today by Charles Gobye, who is a farmer from Warwickshire. He is a dairy, a beef, an arable farmer. I think I'm even going to say a sheep farmer, too. He's got all the bases covered. The only thing he hasn't got is goats.
And Charles is somebody that you may well know. He's got his own podcast, which he called the pharmacy. I think we can still call it the pharmacy. You've not been dragged off to court yet, and you do that with a doctor. And that's a brilliant podcast. And also, Charles is the guy that BBC Midlands today. If they have some farming issues, Charles is their go to man, and he's a complete, absolute advocate for all things farming, promoting everything that is good about british agriculture. So welcome along, Charles.
[00:01:15] Speaker B: Yeah, cheers, Neil. Cheers, Chris. And Flav, when he eventually gets here, if he manages to get here. Yes, it's a real pleasure to be invited onto this.
[00:01:23] Speaker A: Thank you for joining us.
[00:01:24] Speaker C: So, as we do every week, we start the show off with the good, the bad and the ugly.
As Flav is moving pig huts around, we have invited Charles to join in, and I think he's gonna take the bad this week, but in running order. I'll start with the good.
And as Neil mentioned, one of the things Charles does is sheep farming. And what a great, actually, what a really good time to be sheep farmer currently.
Yeah, prices are high. I think in February, it was an all time high for February. I think they were up around 23% from highs early in the year.
And it's good to see sort of many long suffering sheep farmers having a good year, really after some quite poor ones. As we all know, it's hard work, sheep farming.
There's obviously lots out there in the market about demand declining. We've mentioned about the importance of the halal market on a previous podcast, and obviously there's the threat of the. With the free trade deal with Australia of extra coming in. So it's important that any sector in agriculture has a good year.
And, yeah, it's good. We have sheep at home as well, and that farmers are getting a good year and getting a bit of fat on the back for the future. So, yeah, a good one.
[00:03:05] Speaker B: This week you do. It does make you wonder how much these prices can maintain where they are with the cost of living.
You do worry if we're going to start pricing themselves out of the market a bit almost at times.
[00:03:19] Speaker C: Oh yeah.
I went to market last week and you look at what it's going for and then you think about what it goes for in a restaurant, in a meal and it really is quite hard to figure it out when you've got kill costs, butchery costs to make it work.
Obviously there's some exports which are making some good prices around the globe but. Yeah, completely agree, Charles. It doesn't quite make sense in my mind, but sometimes farmers are on the rough end of the stick with stuff like this so hopefully it can maintain itself.
[00:04:10] Speaker B: Yeah, take it while we can.
[00:04:12] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:04:13] Speaker B: So I'm taking the bad, am I?
[00:04:16] Speaker C: You are, you are.
[00:04:17] Speaker B: Well, I was hoping to have the ugly and that was just to say that we've got our foot trimmer tomorrow and if you see him, he's a really ugly bugger. But no, the bad. Well this is linking back to something you did a few weeks ago and it should be a good is that we have a little slaughterhouse about a mile and a half way from here which has opened back up, which is brilliant to see. So I've actually got two slaughterhouses within 5 miles from me.
Yeah, they started killing this week and there has been such a backlash because it's. Well nobody is directly saying it on the local forums but because it's hello.
And I just disgust me to see it. I've done everything I can to try and support them and try and explain to people and say to them, look, just at least understand what you're talking about before you start opening your mouth.
But yeah, people have got such prejudice and it just frustrates me so much.
[00:05:20] Speaker C: That's really sad to hear. Very similar things happened in Cumbria but I haven't heard of as much backlash with that. Same as you have tried to support them. I've put them back in contact with a few key local businesses because, yeah, it's creating jobs.
Like I said, everyone's asking farmers to diversify and selling product straight from farm to consumers is a great way of farmers doing that. So the more local abattoirs we have the better.
[00:05:57] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean they all say, well people say they want local food and they want to support the local butchers but who do you think supplying these smaller local butchers?
[00:06:07] Speaker A: Well it comes on to what we're talking about last week and you know, I'll say my ugly in a second. But just touching on that was my comment last week about the amount of the Arctics that I see on the road now full of cattle, full of sheep going up and down the country. You never used to see those. And it suddenly dawned to me that well the reason why that is is because there's no local abattoirs. All these animals are being shipped, left threat for the country to get slaughtered and you think you've spent two years, two and a half years rearing a beef animal and then it has a five hour journey on a lorry. I mean it's just absolutely crazy. So yeah, yeah not, not good but great that we've got a local abattoir opened up again. So my ugly is um, is the tv situation. Um, it's just you know, I'm a, I'm a contractor. You know, majority of my farms are dairy farms and over the years I've been doing this quite a few years now, you know my friendships have been grown and I, you know I've got a. To know these farmers and when you arrive on a farm to discover that they've lost 1020 or 30 animals to tb and not only the effect that that has on them from a business point of view, from a cash flow point of view because it's a huge amount of revenue going out of that boat tank, it's also the emotional impact, the mental impact that, that has on that family. Seeing animals just getting heaped up and loaded for no real reason at all. I think the way it's going we seem to have had a decline in TB but at the moment it just seems to be on the increase. I don't know where the answer is or what the answer is but the government and people in power, they just need to be doing something because it's just, it seems to me like they just do not care. It's just. Doesn't matter. Stick a green tag in its ear, fire it on a lorry and off we go. And there's no thought or care. So that's my ugly. I'm not going to go on about it but I just think that something just needs to happen and needs to happen really, really quickly because at this rate I'll be having a career change. Because in all seriousness a lot of my farms if it keeps going like this, they'll be questioning whether they want to carry on milking cows and who can blame them.
[00:08:32] Speaker C: Yeah it was, yeah, like you say Neil, it's just been going on for so long, it was great to see that David Barton was elected as the NFVU livestock board chairman this month.
Obviously he's been a big spokesman for TB and it just makes sure that from the NFU's point of view that that is remains at the top of the agenda and all the possible work that can be done is being done.
[00:09:03] Speaker B: It was a really good film today. Or was it yesterday? Even put on Twitter Steve Evans down in Pembrokeshire working alongside Gareth win Jones.
There was a chat there.
I think it's a new entrant or it's a new enterprise. He's built his herd up over the last couple of years, up to 100 and 8130. Sorry. And he's just lost 13 in one go on his farm and it shows the emotional devastation to him and his whole family.
Those animals are lovely animals. The children were out there petting them, stroking them and then see them shot and loaded up on farm. It has such an impact.
[00:09:44] Speaker A: Yeah, it is. It is not. Not good at all. Not good at all.
[00:09:50] Speaker C: But anyways, on with the show and as Neil said, it's great to have Charles on. Neil did a fantastic little introduction but we'll just get started off. So, Charles, really just give us a bit of. A bit about your story in farming and where you've come from and.
And how you and your business has grown over the years.
[00:10:18] Speaker B: So I'm a second generation farmer. My old man started 64 years ago this week, actually. He moved out of the middle of the local town and started on a 32 acre coal board farm where he had enough money to buy a cow. He then cashed in an insurance or my grandfather's insurance policy to buy another cow.
They sold my grandmother's prize welsh dresser, which bought a third cow and then they bought three cows on finance and started from there. And then four years later. Did he buy it back when he got successful? Say again? Sorry?
[00:10:59] Speaker C: Did he buy it back when he got successful?
[00:11:01] Speaker B: No, he didn't.
Maybe one day when we do get successful, we might do.
But, yeah, four years later that farm was sited for development.
So he ended up moving us to where we are today, which at the time was 164 acres. So it's a pretty big step. And by that time, I think we'd built the herd up to about 60 cows.
And then a few years later we had the opportunity to buy it and we've carried on expanding and pushing and today at the minute we are now milking 350. We're housed all year round.
We're on a green bedding system. So all our cows are basically lining their own shit, which I absolutely adore. It's been a revelation for us and we're rearing all our own beef cattle, dairy beef from that, taking them right through to slaughter and farming. 1400 acres, which is about 50, 50, owned and rented.
We've also diversified.
We've got a fairly large industrial unit set up on another local farm that we bought.
And, well, anytime now we'll also be going into solar. We've got about 75 acre solar panels due to start any day.
[00:12:25] Speaker A: Well, that's. Yeah, and obviously, as Charles may have alluded to earlier, I know Charles quite well because I'm the guy that looks after Charles's cows or their feet anyway, so. And I'm actually there tomorrow, so I'm getting a double dose of Charles. And then you're lucky.
I am.
I really am.
[00:12:46] Speaker C: You're maybe not so lucky, Charles.
[00:12:51] Speaker A: Oh, Jesus. Why did I ask Charles? But obviously, Charles, you're incredibly passionate about farming and whenever I see you, you always empower that into me. And obviously you've got involved recently with a campaign that a lot of people have sort of got that little yellow picture, put it as their profile picture on social media.
No farmers, no food. Do you want to talk to us a little bit about that and how that's come about and what the aim of it is?
[00:13:24] Speaker B: Yeah, so, yeah, as you say, I've been passionate about farming for. Well, all my life. It's all I've ever wanted to do and, yeah, so, I don't know, randomly I got invited into a bit of a think tank group.
When was it? About three months ago now, I suppose, which, I don't know, there must have been 70 or 80 of us in. It wasn't ideal to start with. It was a bit unregulated. Everybody was invited, everybody. And there was a lot of noise and a lot of things that are irrelevant to what we should be doing. Irrelevant to farming, almost.
And then a group of us basically moved to one side and set up a separate little group which we've now formed officially is no farmers, no food.
We've set it up and we are looking at empowering farmers to be able to tell their own story more and to campaign about issues that are affecting the industry and also using social media and also media and also working alongside other organizations. So we've got no political allegiance to anybody, we've got no allegiance to any other organisations or commercial entities, completely independent.
And just being able to campaign to get farming where it should be.
I mean, the sort of issues that we're looking at primarily to initially is going to be fair trade in the supply chain and supermarkets.
That's going to include things like the labeling trade deals, the free trade agreements that we're signing. I mean we've seen what's happened with the Australia New Zealand deals. Not ideal. They've almost set a bit of a precedent. So we've got to make a stand on there to make sure that we're protecting ourselves and our own industries and also public procurement. So I'm also involved with love british food as well, which I'm very passionate about. So seeing that we're getting more homegrown food into our own public sector, our hospitals, our schools, etcetera, I mean that's something that a lot of people forget about and almost ignore it. But it's worth 2.4 billion pounds. It's a huge market and it's actually putting a standard in place for everybody else to base themselves off.
We're also going to be looking at things like environment agency cuts and flooding issues, government policies around rural communities, tb obviously that you mentioned there, Neil, that's a huge one as well. And just rural infrastructure.
If I go to the top of our farm, I am overlooking Birmingham. If I go to the other farm 4 miles down the road, I'm looking at the Rico arena on the edge of Coventry. And yet I'm dependent on 4G for my Internet. And that's shocking at the best of times. We can't get broadband here. It's appalling.
So it's things like that. And then also we've got a really great chap on the fishing side of it as well because I know very little about that personally. But yeah, our fishing communities are really struggling still and have been for a hell of a long time. So huge amount of issues and a lot to be campaigning on. But we appreciate this. This is a long term thing and this is something. So as you said, there's a small group of us, but actually it's not going to be about that small group of us. It's about getting everybody involved, telling the story, campaigning together, bringing people together, being one voice and actually telling everybody stories. So it's going to be everybody involved is the plan. And actually in just the two months that we've been going, it's been phenomenally successful. Phenomenally. The amount of people contacting us now obviously I'm not going to mention names, but from mainstream media wanting to work with us to even some of the very large farming organizations are very keen to have involvement.
[00:17:51] Speaker A: So it sounds absolutely fantastic. And I'm just picking up on one of the things you said there. I think getting british food into schools and hospitals and the like, places like that public school, that, to me, that's just a no brainer. That should be where it's starting because there's so much we could do to get, you know, to educate kids in school and get them understanding where this food has come from. It's locally produced. It's. It's all. It's all good, and it. And it's british. You've got a really. I don't want to use the sound political, but a massive mandate there of. Hold on a minute. We're just gonna have to let flavs in the house.
[00:18:32] Speaker B: Hello?
[00:18:33] Speaker A: Oh, my God. We'll start.
[00:18:36] Speaker B: Pop a microphone now.
[00:18:38] Speaker C: He's very professional.
[00:18:40] Speaker A: Yeah. Jesus.
I'm here defying all odds in for our male species. Just finished unloading pig hats. Got dinner on the gun, feeding back as we speak. And on Zoom.
[00:18:59] Speaker C: What a great multitasker.
[00:19:01] Speaker A: Brilliant. So, um, what we were just saying about you've got a massive mandate there with all the stuff that you've highlighted that you want to do, shouldn't that be being done by the NFU? A lot of that stuff?
[00:19:20] Speaker B: I think.
Yes, it should be, but I think at the same time, the NFU have got to be political and careful.
And, Joe, I honestly see us that we can be almost the voice in the background of the NFU, the TFA, you know, everybody, basically, you've got to have one side of it that's political and doing things as they are now. But at the same time, you've got to be able to remind everybody that, you know, don't forget, we are a huge part of this country. We're the ones feeding this country. We're the ones protecting the environment. So get your backside into gear, because the last thing you want to do is go hungry and, you know, see empty shelves. So you've got to be looking after farmers. I'm not saying give us preferential treatment. I'm not saying subsidize us. I'm saying just be fair, be honest.
[00:20:27] Speaker A: No.
[00:20:27] Speaker C: Yeah. No, I agree with that, Charles. I think, having been around the NFU, there's some amazing staff do a great job.
Farmers that sit on boards, and the office holders, all very skilled and passionate people. But like you said, it is very political. There's certain things that they. They can't say, even though how frustrating. And if there is a group that can sort of. That they can work with, that can sort of get some of the messages out that they can't say legally.
I think it could work really, really well. And it's good that educated, passionate people have taken the initiative to do that, really.
[00:21:17] Speaker B: And it is. I mean, the group we've got are brilliant people we're trying to cover.
There's a couple of more people we'd like to recruit on and we've got people in mind, but we're trying to cover every sector of the industry and all the regions as well, just to get the ball moving. And then, like I say, as we go, then empower individual farmers to be able to work and do the things as well.
[00:21:45] Speaker A: So it's like one of the big things that I think people have almost, like, shared your. The logo, haven't you? Without even realizing it, they've just seen that logo and they're just like, yeah, we'll just put that on our Facebook profile, we'll put that on our Instagram, whatever. Like, that is a profile picture, which is. Which is amazing. I think the amount of people you can go through and you can see that that's all there. But I think it sounds really, really exciting and really good. And like I say, you've got a massive mandate there to work on, but it's a massive task, isn't it? You know, it is absolutely huge because I think there's like a common theme, you know, we've been, we've done, what, six or seven, eight, whatever episodes now of this, and there's this whole common theme about getting people to understand where their foods come from, about supply chain, fairness, all of these things. It's like, it's there. We're talking about it every week, and how are we going to change that?
[00:22:50] Speaker B: It is huge. And, God, we know this isn't going to be something we're going to solve today, tomorrow, in the next year. It's a huge long term thing, but just look at what's happened in just a matter of months.
And this started in a field about 5 miles away from here. A good friend of mine, will Oliver, last harvest, was chatting with his local MP, whose name has just completely gone out of my head. And it's from that conversation in that field that we now have the buy british button in so many supermarkets. I think Tesco have even just announced they're going to do it now, haven't they?
[00:23:30] Speaker C: Yeah, they have. Yeah.
[00:23:32] Speaker B: People are recognizing things have got to change.
We've also got so many people out there, just look what's happening around Europe. And actually, it's further afield. It's around the world. We're seeing it in Australia, it's in Canada and America as well.
I don't like the word uprising, but the farmer protests. The farmers, you know, voicing their concerns and, yeah, some are taken to the streets and we can use that. I don't necessarily agree with farmers protesting.
I think the consumer, we've got to remember it's our customers are the most important people to us and we've got to keep them inside. The last thing we want to be is to just stop oil. So we've got to be careful what we're doing.
But actually we can use what's happening abroad to, to put more weight on governments, organisations and say, look, you don't want this happening here. And it is on a knife edge. We had the protests the other week down in London, which actually got a huge amount of support in the end.
Could have gone either way.
We can use that. And also at the time when there's going to be a lot of political change coming up in the next, what, six months or so, now's the time to be getting in the ears of the opposition who's going to be in power coming up and really start having some effect. And actually, I mean, both sides of the table, conservatives and labour as well as the Lib Dems and whoever else, they all want to listen to farmers at the minute. And they are listening, yeah, because I.
[00:25:13] Speaker C: Actually think that the retailers really should be standing with us and could play a key part in this, because as british farmers, with different rules and regulations which are being proposed, struggles over planning permission of, for example, poultry sheds which are needed, farmers aren't going to be able to keep producing the amount of food that even we are now for a growing, just UK population.
And I think there's lots that could be done for the retailers. It's good that they've, from will and others, work on the by british side, but I think they could be really standing with us and helping us out with this because it's definitely in their interests to give their consumers local food, which is definitely what they want.
[00:26:13] Speaker B: Not even just local food for the big retailers. Yes, yeah, we do want to see local, but just look back over the last few years during lockdown and the start of COVID Look at the empty shelves, because our just in time supply chain system was caught with its pants down. It failed completely.
Then we had the start of the Ukraine conflict. We hadn't learned lessons. The same happened again and we've seen it with labor shortages and, you know, energy price rises where supermarkets didn't want to pull the finger out and make the right choices. And on the back of that we saw empty shelves with a salads, with veg, with eggs. We've seen it with pork as well.
They've got to learn and realize that, you know, we've got to work together, else they're not going to be able to fill them shelves. And you look at what they're complaining about in Europe, one of them is, you know, about their food security, so they're concerned about it. So the last thing we want to be doing is relying more on imports because they're not going to come if they have shortages. The first people that are going to get dropped in it are going to be us.
[00:27:22] Speaker A: The whole relying on import thing just completely blows my mind, because the world population is growing, so the countries, everyone's population is growing and at some point all these countries can start looking after themselves. And if we're reliant on somebody else's country to provide our food, then we are going, like you say, we're going to get caught with our pants down straight away. And it's just, there just doesn't seem to be any care about food security.
It just doesn't seem to be an issue.
[00:27:54] Speaker B: And I think between now and 2050, is it a. The United nations have said we've got to increase food production between 50 and 80% just to keep up with demand.
But it's not just extra food we've got to produce, it's better quality, because as people are getting more affluent, they're wanting higher quality proteins as well. And, you know, we're not going to. I've no doubt we are going to need the fake foods to help us keep up with demand. And I don't see any threat from them whatsoever.
Not at all.
They're not going to take off. I can't even see them actually being financially viable. But just for us to keep up with demand, it's. We've seen at the minute where lamb and beef prices are. We're talking a minute ago saying how much before we start pricing ourselves out the market.
[00:28:50] Speaker A: Yeah, it is, it is. So I've just. Yeah, no, it's brilliant that yourself and, you know, a bunch of farmers there and other people around the industry are sort of getting together and then putting this, putting this together and moving it forward. And quite clearly already after, even after a couple of months, you've had a massive effect. People are talking about it, people are sharing the pictures and it's brilliant. Well done for you for doing it.
[00:29:17] Speaker B: Yeah. Thank you. And I think, you know, very, very soon, the website is all going to be live, which is going to give a lot more detail and a lot more meat on the bone to what the policies are and what we are actually doing, as well as a proper introduction to who all of us are, our backgrounds and our intentions.
[00:29:36] Speaker A: So, moving on, one of the things that you always talk to me about, great pride, Charles, every time I see you, is about the. The imaginary farm. And you always come and tell me these stories about how you've got to do something. And then the reality hits me that it is imaginary farm and one that's very famous on. On the BBC, on a radio for sort of long running.
What do you want to call it? How would you call it?
[00:30:05] Speaker B: Oh, you're on about.
No. So a couple of times I've been asked.
Yeah, the archers.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, occasionally I'll get one of them to get in touch and they've asked for my opinion on how they can phrase a story or work on a story.
Yeah. So I can't think what I've been asked. I've been asked about shed design for when they put in the new dairy setup.
And there was one where they asked a group of us, I think, flab, you might be. This might have been on the. Just farmers, was it? Or ox. No, I can't remember where they were talking about.
They wanted a random disease to throw in the mix that a cow could have been suffering with. So, yeah, occasionally I'll get a bit of a message from them and ask for a bit of an idea or an opinion.
Yeah, they've been in touch recently, but I'm not going to say about that because it's a story they're developing.
So I better not divulge too much into that. I don't want to get in trouble.
[00:31:13] Speaker C: That is great, though, that shows like that are actually consulting real life farmers on day to day practices and what goes into planning new enterprises and stuff, because obviously the general public will hear that and we need. I think we've talked about it before. We actually. We need to make sure that we're representing, actually, what goes on there, not just a fairy tale.
[00:31:44] Speaker B: Yeah.
I've been speaking to a few people recently who I know mainly online.
How can we get true, honest farming into mainstream media? On the tv? We need something on primetime tv. Yes. We've got Clarkson's farm, which is brilliant, and there's a few other programs, but let's not show the fairy tale. Let's show honest, true farming. The day to day life, the nitty gritty of it all, the good, the bad and the ugly.
And how do you get that commissioned and get it there?
I think it'd be huge if somebody can do it. Yeah. I think the best idea somebody suggested to me was, you need somebody that is good, that can be about the industry and not themselves. But actually, every week, just go to a different farmer, go and look at what they're doing and just move around. So it's not just about one person, week in, week out, move around different sectors, different regions, just show the whole network. Because farming is not the same in this country, is it? We all do it differently. We all do a brilliant job, but we can do it completely differently. It is hard and you don't realize how hard it is. So I started this little project of mine, crikey, two years ago, where we sold Mavis Macau to the annual sanctuary. And we'd got it all planned. It was going to be dead easy. Oh, we'd have this done in six months. And here we are two years later. I've been on the phone to the chat now, you know, we've got to pull us fingers out and work out really how we're going to do this now. Problem is, because it's been so long, the story has just evolved so much, so much.
[00:33:36] Speaker A: I was going to ask you about Mavis. You beat me to it.
[00:33:40] Speaker B: Well, I'm going to ask you about Mavis tomorrow. I've got a nice little job for you.
So, yeah, a bit of background on this. So, two years ago, I was doing a job for BBC breakfast and the cameraman was really interested in farming, really loved it. And he approached me while we were halfway through filming and said, you know, yeah, you're right, you're not bad on camera. I've obviously got the looks. He said, can you fancy doing a bit of a documentary about farming? He said, it can be whatever you want, you know, I want you to tell your story. He said, I've always been fascinated in farming. So I said, yeah, yeah, you know, we'll change numbers and have a chat about it. And then, mid morning, I'd done everybody bacon butties and everything. He brought him into the farmhouse, but he was all right. He'd had his breakfast and that, and he had a coffee, but he took it black. And then the presenter said to him, said, how long you been vegan for now, then, Mark.
And he just literally slid under the table. He was mortified. That it come out.
But he was great and we had a great chat about it and we came up with this thing where I tell the story of dairy, but I actually said to him, I said, I want you to be involved in it. I want you to question everything I do as a vegan so we can get a proper balanced discussion going and honest facts.
And Mark's brilliant. He's a vegan who hates the extreme side of vegans, just as I hate the extreme side of farmers and meat eaters who are.
We all live on this planet together. We're not doing anybody harm as long as you get rid of the 10% of each end of the spectrum.
So as part of this documentary we started making, I sold Mavis my, my famous cow I used on every single video. She was going barren to an animal sanctuary.
And here we are two years later, looking at getting her out of the animal sanctuary.
Yeah, I suppose I better be careful what I'm saying too much. Let's just say I think farmers know how to look after cows better than some people think they know how to look after them.
Yeah, I'm not happy with her at all. Not in the slightest.
We've got things lined up, but, yeah, I think we need a few people to. So I'm probably going to get a vet to go down with me as well, go and pay her a visit, have a look and get some second opinions on her. But, yeah, not happy. And neither is Mark, the vegan. He's, you know, I can bring her up and he'll be in tears.
Yeah.
[00:36:37] Speaker C: One thing I wanted to ask you about, Charles was obviously, you do a great job for agriculture in promoting it. We've talked on previous episodes about sort of negativity, especially on social media.
So with you putting your head above the parapet and the no farmers, no food and your media work, have you seen any criticism from other farmers or local farmers saying, oh, he's on the tv again? And how have you handled that? Or has it not been an issue for you?
[00:37:14] Speaker B: Just his brother.
When I first set up my social media, it wasn't linked to me whatsoever, just this farm life. And I'd never put any photos of me because I didn't want the story to be about me, I wanted it to be about farming and not even just my farm, farming in general.
And I did get quite a lot of backlash then from people, but I think early days I was as bad. I would spend too much time answering to people who, it's not worth wasting your time with. You're not going to convince the 10% of the people who are anti everything that you do to change the mind.
So you've got to remember that 80% in the middle, they're the people you're talking to. So you've almost got to block out the noise at the end and you'll get that in farming as well. There's certain people in farming the same.
Then when I showed my face and basically said, yeah, it is me, and started doing stuff on the tv and especially with the whole Mavis story, the first time I posted about that, I was absolutely petrified and I honestly thought I was going to get a huge backlash from the farming community, people that had slowly built up a little bit of respect from maybe, I hope, and I thought, this is just going to go, but I did it. And actually I had that much positive reaction, people messaging me and saying, this is brilliant, this is what we need.
So I was really pleased with that. So generally, yeah, putting my head above parapet, and especially in my local community, I've had nothing but positivity.
No farmers, no food.
Yes, I've had some negativity. Well, not me personally. I think the group has, there is a section of people who seem to have a dislike to us, think we are, what's the phrase? An Astroturf group, we're called regularly. And that basically we're a bunch of con men who are just out to do this for the money, even though it's actually cost us a lot of money, no income whatsoever. And we're doing this in our own time.
But again, when you look online, you can almost, you need to stop looking at comments because it does get to you and it really does. But actually, when you stop and remove yourself and then calm down, go back and have a look, actually, you might have 100 really positive things said and then two negatives, but you'll only have a look at those two negatives. And if you memorize who they are, it's actually the same two people over and over again, or accounts linked.
So you've got to train yourself just to ignore. You're not going to convince everybody. Why waste your time trying to.
[00:40:27] Speaker A: No, it's a really good point. Because even like the big world of hoof trimming on social media and all the rest of it around that and some of the guys that have got hundreds of thousands of followers, they will certainly get hit by an animal rights group and stuff like that.
And it's just because it happened. Well, it wasn't to my, to me years ago. And I've not long started and I woke up in the morning and I was like, oh, look at all this interaction on this Facebook post. This is like pre Instagram and pre I've made it. This is amazing. When I looked at them, it was all these horrific comments and it was obviously a group, but someone said, look, there's somebody. Let's all have a dig at him and let's all chuck something on there. And I think it's. Yeah, you just have to ignore that and just keep pushing on with the actual. The good stuff you are saying. Because any negativity, you know, when you talk about farming and people do, if somebody tries to put a negative spin on it, you know, some of these people just think we're sort of animal abusers and we're not, you know, we want to look after our animals. Absolutely amazing. And that just comes back to what you've said about Mavis. You know, you want, you know, you. Mavis was, you know, by the sounds of thing, was, you know, looked after better in your robot shed than she was, you know, somewhere else. And that just goes to show what, you know, what farmers are doing and how well they do look after their stock.
[00:41:54] Speaker B: Just look at anybody, you know, in employment. If your boss treats you like crap, you're not going to work, you're not going to be productive. If you've got a boss that treats you, you know, really well, gives you perks, you know, works with you, you're going to put in the extra mile for them. And it's no different to our animals.
You know, you make their life pleasurable and nice, they're gonna. They're gonna be more productive. It's counterproductive to treat them like crap, isn't it?
[00:42:24] Speaker A: Oh, 100%, yeah. To look after everybody, whether, you know, from your cows to your sheep to your goats to the people that work for you.
[00:42:34] Speaker B: Yeah. But it's funny, you've obviously been on some vegan pin boards somewhere, and then all of a sudden you just hit from all around the world and have the death threats been accused of being all sorts. And like I say, you look at it and it's nearly always, Australia and Canada are the worst ones, I find. I don't know why, but occasionally you do get one that's in the UK, and it does make you worry sometimes, but it blows over. Give it a week and it's gone. I don't disagree. And I'll tell you what, Flav, that. That first group, I think within a couple of days, being involved in that, I thought why the hell am I even doing this? This is just bloody ridiculous. And honest to God, it was. It was shocking.
Um, but, yeah, hopefully when. When. When you see the website and you see who is the core, the steering group, it's completely different.
Yeah, I don't. Yeah, there was some unsavory opinions, shall we say, and it was completely detached from farming. A lot of the discussion as well, or, you know, at the far end, so. And you're right, in farming, there are a lot of outdated opinions.
And I'd like to think it's changing, but it's. That's easy for me to say. I'm a white, middle aged, privileged man.
But I'd like to think we are slowly making change. Not fast enough, but there's always more we can do. And I always say this on everything, when you think you've reached your peak, a prime example is like the old man says to me, the day you finish paying off your mortgage is the day you're in trouble because you think you've made it and then you start going backwards. There's no nothing. You're not standing still, you're just going backwards. And I think it's like that with all these sort of issues, we've always got to be looking to improve. There's always more that you can do and we've always got to look at it that way.
Lamb and beef, they eat every single day. They are huge. The muslim community is huge to british farming. We need them and we have to realize that. And flavor. Just before you came on, we were talking and I was saying, we've had a halal slaughterhouse open about a mile and a half away from us and there's been such a backlash. And although people on the Facebook forums aren't directly saying halal, well, they pretty much are. You know, that's what it's all about. It's just so frustrating.
[00:45:13] Speaker C: Charles, obviously we've talked about a lot of the negativity and.
And so weaknesses of british agriculture and some of the issues.
No farmers, no food, you're trying to address. Are you still positive about the future of british agriculture and your own business?
[00:45:33] Speaker B: Hugely. Always have been hugely positive.
Well, we've said people are always going to want food. We've said how much we've got to increase production. The government have said that we are their solution to net zero. Whatever you think of net zero.
I personally, yes, we've got to work towards it, but we've got to realize that until we have actual metrics to be able to properly measure emissions and sequestration.
I think we need to be very careful, especially when it comes to things like carbon trading.
That seriously concerns me. Carbon trading does. I can see that coming back. Anybody that's doing that, I can see it coming back to bite them on the backside.
It's like the next missed selling scandal.
But, yes, we're the ones that are going to be producing the food. We're the ones that are looking after the countryside and we are the ones that can be giving the huge answers towards reducing our emissions and becoming more sustainable.
[00:46:41] Speaker A: Well, do you know what, Charles, thank you so much for giving us a tiny, tiny, tiny little insight into the campaign and what's going on with no farmers, no food.
I think we all agree that it's absolutely fantastic that a bunch of farmers have stuck their head above the parapet, invested time and money, really, to benefit the whole wider industry. And, yeah, I think you need applauding for that, along with the other people that are involved with it. And, yeah, thanks again for joining us today. Hopefully it will give. You know, it's great to have a farmer on. It's even better to have a farmer on that is a friend and a client of mine that I'll see tomorrow. So that's good. And I look forward to you talking to me about wherever the Mavis story is and. Yeah, and, well, I'll see you tomorrow. And for everyone else.
[00:47:37] Speaker B: Yeah, well, no, thank you very much. And, Neil, you know, we never discussed payment for this, but what I haven't told you is that actually the old man needs his toenails clipping tomorrow as well. There's no way under it.
[00:47:52] Speaker A: Now. He's had his hip done. Is he getting better or is he still pretty?
[00:47:55] Speaker B: He's still as miserable as ever. Cantankerous.
Yeah. He wants a new knee now, I think.
[00:48:02] Speaker A: Oh, does he? Yeah, he'll be there for years to come.
[00:48:07] Speaker B: Well, I keep saying to him, though, I mean, all this, all this investment in him, we need to see a return on that investment. So he's got to work a bit harder before we do anything else.
[00:48:19] Speaker A: I'm not doing that. Bless him. Cheers. Thanks, Charles.
[00:48:23] Speaker B: All right, cheers, guys.
[00:48:25] Speaker A: Well, that was a fascinating chat with Charles Goby, really talking about his passion for all things british farming, and it's great to see that he's channeling a lot of that passion into the no farmers, no food campaign now, which is just obviously going to be something that we're going to see more and more of.
[00:48:51] Speaker C: Yeah, no, definitely. And I think, yeah, what we've done in tonight's episode is really why we started this podcast and we talked about it on the show, but it's really getting the true message of actually what's going on on farms and giving the public, our consumers, a real insight to the nitty gritty of what goes on on farms and what goes into producing the food that we all eat.
[00:49:26] Speaker A: 100%, mate. Brilliant. Well, thanks again, everybody, for listening. If you like our show, don't forget to follow it and subscribe it on Spotify.
And we go and we'll get up there, because apparently, how the algorithms work and all the rest of it, the more likes follows, whatever you want to call it, we get, we, we get pushed up the chart, and that's what it's all about. Thanks again, lads, and we'll see you all again next time.
