Today we welcome a friend. A friend I’ve only met once but by god it was some weekend!Lower Nithsdale headed down to South Wales in early July for an exchange with Wentwood Young Farmers. That’s when I met Nerys and there was some drama, I got concussed, the group took rafts down the river and much more!Nerys is so much more than that though! She is actively involved in Wales YF, deep involvement with rural youth Europe and European rally!A great story of what young farmers can offer you in Wales!Enjoy!

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Today we welcome superstars. Roger and Richard Nicholson of the much loved Cannon Hall Farm come on to talk about the transition from a difficult start for Roger to employing around 250 staff. TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY.Roger was brought up on a farm which had to be sold by ways of compulsory purchase. The full farm sold for £7100…no 0’s on the end there, 7100. They then moved on to another place, Cannon Hall. Unfortunate events meant that, with assistance in paperwork from his mother and some Orr her help from neighbours, Roger took over the place at 16. *Cough cough* years on and they now operate one of the most successful diversified enterprises in the country with vast arrays of income streams from farming, hospitality, retail to farm tours, social media and television.Also…how cool is this? They have a zoo licence!!!A really great success story as the fourth registered farm park in the UK.Enjoy!

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Todays guest, who has the best Instagram name there is Claire Whittle…or Dr_Dowhittle is a perfect inditement of what is wrong with the acceptance system of vet schools. Claire has managed to break the mould and proved that being that 7 A and advanced higher student at school isn’t the only type of person to make a good vet.Claire’s story starts in retail and now finds her self in her own words trying to get her self out of a job and I genuinely believe she means it! Claire mentions at one point ‘you know those moments that live to define your life and change the way you see the world’…and honestly this podcast was that for me.She’s a Nuffield scholar, a vet, someone recovering from cancer (which we never even got to on camera) and this podcast is SOLELY about regeneration with a 90% focus on dung beetles! You will love this, I promise!Enjoy!

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This podcast has three main sections, a painfully successful start to a career in a male dominated industry, a fitness journey and…a literal near death experience!Bethany who I met at a haunted castle experience 4 years ago seems to be forward for awards consistently and always is knocking down barriers to progress in what is the biggest construction company in the country, Balfour Beatty! She also has set her sights on bodybuilding and was really getting there with stage performances looming, Covid caused an issue at first and then a major challenge came her way!At the start of the year a friend of Bethany’s won a like, tag and share competition on Instagram to head to Base Camp of Everest…I’m entering the wrong ones clearly!!With three months training they headed off and we’re doing fine until Gorakshep (the last town before Base Camp). Try to remember that Gorakshep is still 5100m up! At this stage Bethany started to have some major issues…you’ll have to tune in to find out what! An insane story with someone who hasn’t ruled out an attempt at Everest itself one day! What a gal!Enjoy!

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Much like Friday today I welcome on another friend, this one much newer in John Austin!John, from a dairy farm tenancy in Dumfries talks about the volatility of the milk price, discussing pure vs cross bred cattle for milk and his life away from the farm.He speaks about his November and December taken up by Christmas tree harvest as well as his time in young farmers from Lower Nithsdale chair to D&G chair and convert to Croatia!Fun chat with a great guy!Enjoy!

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Today we welcome on a friend. It’s always fun to talk to someone you know well and still find out more about them! Todays guest I’ve known since 2014 when I went to Ayr to start out my academic career! Louise Paterson from ex-QMS Monitor farm, Hartbush in Amisfield near Dumfries has a fair old story to tell!Whether it’s the exemplar farm she comes from and works on, her new job as a land agent, her young farmers career which has seen her secretary, treasurer, 80th year secretary and much more of Lower Nithsdale as well as not holding the post of Dumfries and Galloway District chair! Another great episode!Enjoy!

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Two hours ago I had sent a total of 7 messages to todays guest and now we’re making sure that we stay in touch after a good bit of craic! Izzi Rainey who studied textiles with a focus on print at Glasgow school of art always had a hankering for cows. You can see her love for cattle throughout as her face lights up with similarity to that of the queen when cows appear at her fancy party thing she had! Izzi lives and breathes art and cows and has created a business out of both of them! On the art side, alongside her friend Lara has created a business almost 10 years old supplying upwards of 50 shops with goods and on the farm side has taken a very sweet token retirement gift from her father of 3 heifers to a notable sum of 75 split between Lincoln red and highlander aiming for beef boxes in the local area! Cher them out @batesmoorfarm on Instagram! As always!Enjoy!

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In the UK we have Greg James, in Norway they have Martin Holmen!Martin and I met in Tanzania and the best way for those of you that know me to describe Martin is this, we were told we were on the same energy level and in truth I think he might even top me! An inspiring story of a kid from Norway becoming a nationally known TV and radio personality who had to run after this podcast to finish his script to introduce the world renowned Oslo Philharmonic!On top of this Martin is the national chair for Norwegian 4H hence our meeting in Tanzania at the global summit!I don’t want to ruin a really important part of this podcast so please listen for the full story but Martin goes quite in depth about the struggles and fears he had heading to a country that is very unaccepting of the LGBTQI+ community as a gay man!Great episode with every emotion!Enjoy!

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Diversifications come in various forms, today we welcome a man who farms full time and is working his way up in the world of comedy!Grant Barr from as mixed a farm as you can get, beef, sheep, dairy and arable…the full shabang recently found himself performing at the fringe but there’s a lot more to his story! Having been involved in young farmers for some time Grant also finds himself chairing the national committee of competitions and events overseeing in his words a group of people that make his job very easy! A fun fact is grant has been a national SAYFC champion…to find out what in you’ll have to listen!Just a fun episode with a couple lads enjoying a bit of craic!Like I did be sure to..Enjoy!

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Over 15 thousand likes in the last week, over 0.2 million followers and a devout following on Facebook live! Figures of a pretty notable account, is it in the states, is it in Australia? No it’s about 2 miles from my flat in Dumfries! Ben best comes on to talk about his families utter juggernaut of a social media presence, Dalscone Farm. They stream for half an hour a day in the farm to the whole planet and have a never ending 24:7 stream in twitch allowing their viewers to follow the stories of their animals.Ben speaks about his dedication to education as well and the importance of promoting the sector!A great episode with another analytical geek which I loved!Enjoy!

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