R2Kast - People in Food and Farming/All In

Today I had Clare on the R2Kast 🎙️ Clare is a farmer’s daughter, behavioural scientist and the driving force behind Grounded Research, using research and data to make sure farmers and others across the food supply chain have a genuine voice in decision making. 🌾

We spoke about growing up on an arable farm in Cambridgeshire, moving into marketing and consultancy, life as a military wife and eventually finding her way back into agriculture during the pandemic. That journey also led Clare into behavioural science and understanding why people actually make the decisions they do. 🍎

A big part of the conversation focused on Five Bar Gate and the communities Clare has created to make agricultural research easier, quicker and more representative. We spoke about paying farmers for their time, building robust data sets and making sure the people actually producing food are involved in the research and decisions that affect them. 🌍

We also chatted about ADOPT, farmer led innovation, getting farmers engaged in research and Clare’s nomination for Woman of the Year at the British Farming Awards.

Enjoy! 🙂
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Series three of Tales of a Nuffield Scholar is here 🎙️

Thank you for watching series two, where we looked ahead to the scholars and Next Gen Scholars presenting at the 2026 Nuffield Farming Scholarships Conference in Leeds. This time we’re changing things up and looking at some of the biggest challenges, innovations and conversations shaping agriculture today 🌾
To start the series I was joined by Natalie Hepburn, a fellow scholar from my own Nuffield cohort and someone I travelled to Brazil with on our CSC. Natalie farms around Cardiff, keeping sheep and goats while producing goats milk skincare and sheep milk cheese.

Natalie’s scholarship explored farm diversification and how farmers actually manage everything that comes with turning what they produce into a product. Her travels took her to Brazil, Rwanda, the Netherlands, Ireland, Northern Ireland and around the UK, with one of her biggest takeaways being the importance of networks and businesses supporting each other 🌍

The main focus of this episode though was the relationship between a Nuffield Scholar and their sponsor. Natalie’s scholarship was sponsored by the NFU Mutual Charitable Trust and we spoke about how that relationship went far beyond simply providing the funding. From visiting NFU Mutual headquarters and being connected with people who could help her research, to keeping in touch throughout her travels and sharing her findings afterwards, it showed the role sponsors can play throughout the whole Nuffield journey.
We also chatted about turning months of travel into a 5,000 word report and 12 minute presentation, the Nuffield moments that can completely change your thinking and why sometimes the best thing you can do while travelling is leave gaps in the diary for the opportunities you never planned for 🌱

A great way to kick off series three and a chance to highlight a part of Nuffield that we probably do not speak about enough.

Thank you to the NFU Mutual Charitable Trust for their support of this project.

Enjoy! 🙂
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Today I had Frank on the R2Kast 🎙️ Frank is a Chartered Security Professional whose career has taken him from farming in Lincolnshire into the military and then security roles across the world, including a decade working in Kazakhstan. 🌾

We spoke about how that career eventually brought him back towards agriculture and the creation of Rural Safeguard, using decades of experience in security to help farmers better understand and reduce their risk of rural crime. From machinery and livestock theft to hare coursing and farmyard security, we got into just how broad rural crime actually is. 🍎

A big part of the conversation focused on protecting farms without turning them into fortresses. Frank explained the importance of understanding where you’re vulnerable, building sensible layers of security and having a plan for what happens if someone does enter the farm. His message of better tin than skin was a simple one, protecting yourself and your family has to come before protecting machinery. 🌍

We also spoke about how rural crime is changing through technology, cyber attacks and increasingly sophisticated organised crime, alongside the Demeter Initiative and Frank’s work to bring farming, policing, government and the security sector together to tackle the problem.

Enjoy! 🙂

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Field to Front Door – Episode 14 on selling direct, harvest, food prices and taking back control

Today we’re back with Field to Front Door 🎙️
David, Martin and Wallace catching up as harvest continues, with plenty happening around grain, changing markets and some increasingly ambitious plans from David.

We got into regenerative milling wheat, cleaning grain, mixed cropping and what Martin has learned from growing wheat and peas together. There was also plenty around harvest, from spelt and buckwheat through to linseed and how different crops are performing this year.
A big part of this one was David’s latest experiment with selling food directly from farms to consumers. Potatoes, vegetables, flour, apples and even milk are already involved, with meat potentially coming next. We spoke about whether farmers can work together to create a genuinely competitive alternative that gives customers fresher food while being completely transparent about what the farmer actually gets paid.
That led into a wider chat about supermarkets, postage, contracts and why the price paid to farmers can feel completely disconnected from what eventually reaches the consumer. We also got into the drought, food shortages and why farming seems to operate differently from almost every other industry when supply drops.

And we finished with the British Farming Awards, with David up for Content Creator of the Year and somehow already making friends with the competition 😂

We’re going to keep this going fortnightly for now and see where it takes us. If you’ve got ideas on what we should cover or who we should bring in, send them our way.

Enjoy! 🙂
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Today I had Grace on the R2Kast 🎙️ Grace is a British vet based in New Zealand, working across large animal medicine, parasite management and the development of DAGI, while also helping establish the Aotearoa Veterinarians Union. 🌾
We spoke about a pretty incredible upbringing across Australia, Papua New Guinea, Africa and the Middle East, before eventually coming back to the UK to study veterinary medicine at Bristol. From there her career took her through Cornwall and South Africa before eventually settling in New Zealand and building a life and career there. 🍎

A big part of the conversation focused on drench resistance and DAGI, which stands for Drench and Grazing Integration. We spoke about refugia, grazing, weather and parasite risk, and how DAGI is helping make some of those invisible decisions much easier for farmers to see. We also got into the scale of drench resistance in New Zealand and plans to bring DAGI to the UK. 🌍

DAGI are currently looking for UK farmers interested in being part of the beta trial ahead of its planned launch here. Anyone interested can get in touch with Grace and the team through the DAGI website contact page or at info.dagi.nz@gmail.com.

We also chatted about veterinary wellbeing, setting up the Aotearoa Veterinarians Union, biosecurity, travelling the world and why your veterinary degree doesn’t have to define everything you do for the rest of your career.

Enjoy! 🙂

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