In the final episode of this series Peter is joined by Liz Bowles from the Farm Carbon Toolkit and James Daniel from Precision Grazing to reflect back through the series and consider what resilience really means for farmers in the south west?
Throughout this series we have been encouraging farmers across Cornwall, Devon, Somerset and Dorset to ask how resilient their businesses are going forwards, and see what we can all do to make them more resilient?
From soil health to farm safety and communications to bovine tb, we’ve put a wide variety of topics through the resilience lens. I this episode we take a step back and review the big picture, asking what resilience really means for farmers in the south west? What can we take from the series?
Joining host Peter Green is Liz Bowles, CEO at the Farm Carbon Toolkit and James Daniel who is founder of Precision Grazing.
Throughout this series we are focusing on the topic of resilience.
Farming Focus is the podcast for farmers in the South West of England, but is relevant for farmers outside of the region or indeed anyone in the wider industry or who has an interest in food and farming.
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Timestamps
00:01 Cornish Mutual jingle.
00:14 Peter Green introduces the episode.
01:20 Liz Bowles introduces herself.
02:06 James Daniel introduces himself.
02:37 What does resilience mean to Liz?
03:50 What does resilience mean for James?
05:05 Peter introduces first example - from Sabine McEwan in episode 4
07:20 Second example with Heather Wildman.
10:09 Jingle
10:17 Soil Health and Tom Tolputt example from episode 1.
12:40 Climate resilience example from episode 6.
18:40 Episode 5 example from Anna Jones on the importance of communication.
22:05 Episode 9 TB example.
26:00 Showstoppers and what does resilience mean for Peter?
30:00 We need perspective.
32:48 The cream tea finale!
34:10 Peter rounds up the episode.
Jingle
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Peter Green
Hello and welcome to episode 10, the final episode of this first series of Farming Focus, the podcast for southwest farmers, brought to you by Cornish Mutual. I'm your host. Peter Green. Throughout this series we've been encouraging farmers across Cornwall, Devon, Somerset and Dorset to ask how resilient their businesses are going forwards and to see what we can do to make them more resilient from soil health to farm safety and telling our story to bovine TB. We've looked at a wide variety of topics through the lens of resilience. Today we're going to take a step back and review the big picture asking what does resilience really mean for us in the southwest and what have we learnt from the series. Joining me today to discuss this we have Liz Bowles, CEO at the Farm Carbon Toolkit and James Daniel, who is founder of Precision Grazing.
Liz, welcome to the show. Um, would you introduce yourself, please?
Liz Bowles
Yes, thank you very much, Peter. It's lovely to be on this podcast today. My name is Liz Bowles. I'm the chief exec of the Farm Carbon Toolkit. We're an organisation that was set up by farmers over a decade ago to help farmers to understand all to do with their carbon footprint.
And to understand where the hotspots were for greenhouse gas emissions, how best to reduce them, and also how best to store carbon in soils, which is a real opportunity for all farmers across the globe, actually. Alongside being chief exec of Farm Carbon Toolkit, I'm also a farmer in deepest Devon, really.
I would say that my sheep have probably got the best view in Devon. I farm land overlooking the X Valley, Dartmoor and Exmoor.
Peter Green
Oh, beautiful. Fantastic. Thank you very much, Liz. And James, welcome to Farming Focus. Tell us briefly about yourself and precision grazing.
James Daniel
Yeah, thank you, Peter. It's a pleasure to be here.
Thank you for the invitation. So I'm the founding director of Precision Grazing. My team and I work with sheep, beef, and dairy farmers across England and Wales, um, and we enable them to improve their grazing management in order to increase their financial sort of feasibility and sustainability, environmental sustainability, reduce their carbon footprint, and dramatically increase and improve their work life balance.
Peter Green
Fantastic. Sounds like a win, win, win. So Liz, coming to you first, what does resilience mean to you?
Liz Bowles
Okay. I've been thinking about this as I was going around this morning checking livestock and for me, resilience is the ability to respond to a range of different situations. in ways that are positive. Uh, I always liken it a little bit to, I mean, the classic within livestock, because I think I probably am at my heart a livestock farmer, is that you can have a really highly bred thoroughbred, for instance, that'll be fine.
So long as the ground is relatively flat and you feed it very well, but if you want a horse or a pony that can cope with just about anything, you're probably best off with an Exmoor pony. And it's that kind of analogy really put across the whole of agriculture because What's happening now is we are increasingly having to deal with really amazing weather.
And I think for me, the big message that I'm starting to think about, just for myself, but also for agriculture generally, is there are things that we are having to change because we know that increasingly we will be facing those weather events.
Peter Green
And James, how about you? What would you say resilience means?
James Daniel
Yeah, I think it's interesting. Um, it's actually a little bit of a buzzword that seems to be coming ever more relevant. I think for me, it exists both in a physical capacity and a mental capacity. I think, I think resilience is about capacity, about the ability, both physically and mentally, to deal with challenging events that happen all of a sudden, whether that's extreme rainfall, um, which is both physically challenging and mentally challenging.
I think for me, what I can see working with our range of clients across the country is that We're certainly able to design farm systems that do provide a win win, so not only are they sustainable in an environmental sense, they're sustainable in a financial and a personal sense in terms of that work life balance piece.
They're also mentally sustaining in terms of they give those good feedback loops. And they're fairly easy to manage because they just fit their environment. I really like what you said there, James, about mental resilience and the importance of it. And actually, I think we'll come back to that later on in the podcast.
You know, I think it's easy to really focus on a farm system and the processes that take place on that farm. But actually, the farmer is just as important.
Peter Green
That's great. And we asked each of our guests to give us their take on resilience. And we're going to look back on some of those responses now. Here's Sabine McEwen, uh, the Devon team leader at FWAG Southwest, who appeared on episode four of the series, looking at environmental resilience.
Sabine McEwan
So for me, a resilient farm would be a farm that can adapt to. Changing situations and stresses. So whether that is the loss of BPS or climate or change in regulation is the sort of having the foresight, but also being resilient enough mentally to deal with the stress, take a step back. Assess what the threat is, what the opportunities are, and then make deliberate decisions going forward, rather than just being in a situation where there's constant firefighting and just dealing with the issue just in front, rather than going into some longer term planning with it.
Peter Green
There's a lot in Sabine's answer. She, she talks first about stress and then being able to cope with that. Uh, and then taking a moment to step back and assess the situation before making a deliberate plan to go forward. And it's interesting that she too touched on the mental side of things. I'm sure that you've both observed farms where this happens, you know, there's a, there's a real sort of structure to how to address, um, issues as they arise, but also farms where the approach can, can seem like the polar opposite of, of, of what Sabine's outlined, James coming to you first, what do you think differentiates these two types of farm?
James Daniel
Those who are able to spend time working on their business rather than in their business are those that are inherently more resilient.
Uh, however it is created, they set asides a morning and afternoon, you know, once every one, one or two weeks and some of that time spent doing paperwork and staying up to date. Um, and some of that time is also spent a little bit planning. So be proactive in their planning rather than reactive. The thing is, I think the issue we have in the industry is that we have an industry, sometimes mentality that a busy farmer is a really good farmer.
And if you're not busy, you're not, you're not doing well and you should be busy and perhaps need to be busy. And that's a really hard, I guess, sort of mental state and sort of trait to get out of. But what we sort of have to realize now is that, um, across all levels, personal, you know, personally, um, environmentally and financially, being busier doesn't relate to success in any of those areas.
Peter Green
We'll move on now to our next clip. In episode two, we looked at mental resilience with our guest Heather Wildman and asked what it means to have a resilient mindset. Here's what Heather said about resilience. Um, I guess resilience is a bit of a buzzword as well at the moment, isn't it? And it's like anything, what does it really mean?
Heather Wildman
And I suppose the true definition is it's the art of holding your shape and bouncing back. And for me, it's, I always say it's a bit like Teflon, you know, that Some people go through some awful tragedies have so much bad luck, but they're often the most happy content people because it's a bit of an outlook in life and other people.
It's all woe me. And I guess it's about being rational, being measured, reflective and keeping things in perspective and being well informed. It's a bad day. It's not the end of the world. I'm keeping it all into perspective.
Peter Green
Heather was a great guest. And I'd really recommend anyone who's not heard episode two, or even if you have go back and listen to it again, it's, it's, it's a real favorite of mine.
I loved Heather's response there because she uses this image of bouncing back of being elastic and Liz, you touched on that at the beginning of the podcast. Heather illustrates that some people are better able to do this because they've got a particular perspective on life. Perhaps they've been through some form of trauma.
It's, it's not necessary, obviously to experience a trauma, to get that sort of perspective, um, to, to aid resilience, but Liz, if I could start with you and then James come to you with the same question, how do you get the kind of perspective that helps you to bounce back when you experience a setback?
Liz Bowles
Okay. It's probably taken me years to get to this place. It's been learned from experience over the years, I would say. And the first thing is not to jump into victim mode. And not to internalize it, because things happen, and it's actually how you respond to it that's important. The thing I always take from unfortunate things that happen is that we don't learn much from getting it right.
Whereas if you get something wrong, mostly you learn from it. Then it's about thinking about how you learn something that will be positively helpful in the future.
Liz Bowles
You talk there about don't be a victim, don't just react, just consider your response.I really like that, Liz. Thank you. So, James, how do you make sure that you get perspective?
James Daniel
I think just to link in with what Liz said, I think, um, you read, read a book a couple of years ago, which, um, which, well, which stated that they're very obvious, but really made me think, um, you know, you, you cannot control in life what happens to you. Many things in life you can't control. The only thing you can control is your response to those events.
Peter Green
Ultimately, you are in charge of your thoughts, your thoughts, not you. And it's how you consider those and what response you get back. Heather also talks about, um, looking outside farming and referring to what's your, in your circle of concern and what's in your circle of influence. And that's what I guess you're, you're touching on there, James.
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Peter Green
We began the series by talking about soil health and why a resilient farming business should start with resilient soil. Here's Tom Tolputt from Terrafarmer making his case for why farmers should get to know their soils.
Tom Tolputt
We'd all encourage farmers to just to get to know their soils together. I mean, a lot of people are amazed to hear that there's probably nearly the same biomass in livestock below the soil as a good grazing farm has above the soil. And just to create that narrative change that you've got an ecosystem below your feet, that if you work with it and start to understand it.
You can increase production. You can sequester carbon and build resilience coming right back to where we started. It's really getting to know your soils and playing to its strengths. A sandy soil, a heavy clay soil, a nutrient deficient soil. They're all different, but it's all within the farmer's capability to know that soil, to get to know it and to improve its lot.
And ultimately the lot of the farm that's above it. The narrative is changing, but it's not brown stuff. anymore. It's its own ecological environment and play to it. You know, we're working with seaweeds and molasses and minerals and things. It sounds like a more like a health campaign than it does like a crop nutrition plan, but that's where we're, that's where it will go.
The science of the next 20 years is going to be just incredible when we really get to start understanding this.
Peter Green
Tom Tolputt from Terra Farma there, who sounds like he's heralding a new age for farming. Liz, would you agree with this sentiment, or is that overstating the importance of understanding our soils?
Liz Bowles
No, I absolutely agree with what Tom's saying. I think actually there's more livestock under the soil than on top of it. I know as a sheep farmer, I can't keep the stocking rate of microbiota that there is under the soil. For me, it's so exciting to see how we're all talking about soils differently to how we talked about soils probably only eight years ago.
Talking about soil as the medium to which you simply added inputs was. the way that we did it. And that's so much different to where we are now. My view is that we need to think about our soils to feed the microbiota, to feed the life in the soil. So we look after the soil life. It then looks after the crops that we want to grow in that soil.
Peter Green
Just as significant a factor for farmers planning ahead is, is a change in climate. And in episode six, we put the focus on climate resilience, speaking to Cornish farmer Mike Roberts and Becky Wilson from the Farm Carbon Toolkit. Near the end of the episode, Becky outlined what farmers could try on farm to increase their resilience.
Becky, can you just take us through some of the best practice that you've seen?
We've heard from Mike there about the way that he manages grazing, so moving more towards a paddock system. What other things have you seen on different farms that our listeners could maybe think about trying?
Becky Willson
Absolutely. Um, so there's lots of different things depending on, depending on your sort of system.
And I think we've spoken a lot about the grassland ones. I think if we think about some of those other ones, I think it is about trying to think about, you know, can you potentially keep that soil covered? So are there opportunities within that arable system of under sowing or putting a cover crop in afterwards just to keep that, keep that photosynthesis going?
Also thinking about cultivation, we tend to get quite fixated about we either plough, which is bad, or we direct drill, which is good. Whereas in reality, it's actually thinking about. Getting into, having a look at your soil actually, is there an issue that you need to sort there with that ploughing? Can you think about the depth at which you're ploughing?
Can you think about the frequency with which you're ploughing? So rather than that complete transition from one to the other, if you are going to plough, what can you do alongside that ploughing event to reduce the need for you to come back and do that again? Then thinking about, as I say, thinking about using your stock to do the work for you as Mike's already spoken about.
So actually, where you might not be able to go fully out wintering, can you actually just extend your grazing period for an extra week at the start or a week at the end through thinking about your resilience? And then thinking about those really easy, simple things which are often forgotten about, which are about things like Energy efficiency, which are about things like fuel efficiency.
So again, all of those other things which will reduce cost and also then help in terms of that resilience. And then finally, for anybody with livestock, there is always something you could do around manure management. And again, what you can do there means that you can reduce the amount of fertilizer that's coming onto a farm, which is a massive cost saving.
But also that manure is magic in terms of not just providing nutrients, providing organic matter. A single cowpat, this was a really fun fact I learned recently, a single cowpat can support 6, 000 insects, not just the dung beetles, but all those other things. So it is really magic stuff that is our asset that we need to use much, much more efficiently to actually get all these benefits.
Peter Green
I love how passionate Becky gets. She is, uh, she's so enthused about her subject. It's fantastic to hear her speak. In that episode with Becky and Mike, we spoke at length about why climate resilience was so important. James, what sort of uptake of the suggestions that Becky made are you seeing on farms?
James Daniel
Yeah, within, within our discussion groups with the clients we work with, we're seeing fantastic uptake because things that Becky mentions are clearly the tools and the principles you need to apply in order to become not just environmentally sustainable, but financially profitable, um, and also to achieve that work life balance.
And I know, you know, work personally with, with Mike and Sam at Blabel Farm and what they've been able to do is, as Mike mentions in the episode is, you know, they've maintained, if not slightly increased. Stocking density and output per hectare was eliminating three Arctic loads of fertilizer that used to come on to that farm and how they've achieved that isn't with big capital investments.
Um, it's mainly with management, which with a change in thought process, a change of priority in terms of what's important and what they prioritize is, is the grass and the cows and their grazing management. And that's led and is leading to all these spinoff benefits.
Peter Green
Liz, in your role with the Farm Carbon Toolkit, you must meet lots and lots of farmers.
What's persuading them to make the changes that we've just been hearing about? And what are the most common responses when they've been to an event?
Liz Bowles
Finance does drive actions and certainly the meteoric increase in fossil fuel fertilizer prices over the last couple of years has definitely Home minds to think about managing without fertilizers and what we're then seeing, I mean, it's interesting.
We've just finished the first round of carbon farmer of the year and talking to farmers about that. Some of them were arable farmers and as arable farmers, they've been really looking at how they can reduce their reliance on artificial fertilizers and what they're discovering. Firstly. Is that there's like a bit of over use of fertilizers anyway, but just in case fertilizers, and they can take those out really with very little impact on yield or indeed on anything.
And that's true. Both nitrogen and phosphorus. And then there's the next bit, which is where they need to think about changing practice. And typically that will be growing cover crops to scab in some of the nitrogen that otherwise might be lost out of the bottom of the field. And all of that is helping them to reduce their reliance on those fertilizers.
But then what they're finding, which is the sort of magic that Becky talks about. is that there's other beneficial consequences as a result of reducing reliance on those inputs. The other big change that we're seeing more and more of, especially on livestock farms, is looking at if they are feeding concentrates, what those ingredients are.
And you know, they're being pushed to some degree by their customers to move away from sawyer, but actually it represents a massive opportunity for UK arable farmers to grow those peas and beans in their rotations, because that will improve soil health on their farms. And there'll be a product that can be used for the much lower carbon footprint by livestock farmers.
Peter Green
Yep. And so all of this, um, underlines the fact that this really is a time of huge change in agriculture, which, which was a theme throughout all of the podcasts. We wanted to explore whether engaging with our local communities and with the public more, and on a larger scale, is an important element to consider for future resilience.
And in episode five, agricultural journalist Anna Jones laid down this challenge to farmers when it comes to the importance of communication.
Anna Jones
When we get to talking to your local community and dealing with criticism and dealing with challenge, I do turn into a bit of a critical friend of the farmer, where I do sort of hold a bit of a mirror up to some of their Things that they say, and you know, coming from a traditional farming community, who are quite resistant to change in their community, quite resistant to the social changes, i.e. incomers, blow ins, and people that don't understand farming. And there's so much intolerance that sometimes I have to call it out. And I'm like... Look, we are living in a changing world, with changing demographics, and our countryside is changing. And if our countryside doesn't change, it's going to get left behind, and it will probably just wilt.
And it always comes down to communication.
Peter Green
The familiar voice of Anna Jones being a critical friend to farmers with a really pertinent challenge, not to just stay behind our respective farm gates. Liz, to what extent do you think farmers telling their stories more and just being more active members of their communities can make their own businesses more resilient, but also make the wider agriculture and, you know, even food production industries more fit to face the future?
Liz Bowles
I think telling stories is absolutely critical for agriculture's future success because so many people just don't have the privilege that we as farmers have of working in a fantastic landscape and they would all give their their eye teeth to have the kind of things that many farmers sort of take for granted and that ability to Thank you.
Be able to communicate the reality and I don't, I don't mean either the chocolate box reality or the kind of the horror story reality, but telling it really as it is, because essentially, I get the sense increasingly that people outside of farming want to be supported. But they do need to know how they can be supportive and they, and that really means from farmer's point of view, stepping up to, to let everybody else know what it is.
And there's nothing worse than if a farmer is simply saying how terrible everything is. That doesn't really give everybody else in society any way in. And that, that's the point. It's about giving other people a way in to the world of farmers. And the best people I see doing that are just able to communicate and connect.
With loads of different people and create that connection. And that's really what it's about. Yeah. And I think the point you make there about making sure that we are talking to different people is so important. You know, we are in a changing world and I think this comes back to the point we made earlier in the podcast about having to adapt.
Peter Green
I think that's, that's really key here. Bringing us almost up to date in the last episode, episode nine, we put the spotlight on TB in cattle and asking how the Southwest beef and dairy farmers can be more resilient when it comes to the disease and whether the vaccination of cattle might be an option.
Here's Wiltshire dairy farmer, Max Seeley explaining what resilience means for him in the context of TB.
Max Sealy
I think resilience is about understanding the situation that you're in and having a workable strategy to deal with it. So in terms of the TB, one of the big issues with TB is that you're working with legislation around testing and removal.
Whereas actually, what we've tried to do as a farm is to understand TB on our own farm and to deal with it in terms of animal movements, in terms of grouping of animals. And Getting that sort of message through, but it's difficult when you're under the control of legislation. So, yeah, you know, to be resilient means to be able to have a plan that covers the eventualities and certainly in terms of the TB, that's the wildlife situation.
There's also TB endemic within herds. So it's understanding what sort of TB we have and then being able to deal with it.
Peter Green
TB's are a really pervasive challenge across the Southwest and I liked Max's particular spin on resilience against it, namely, understand where you are and plan how to deal with your personal situation.
Perhaps drawing on your own contact with farmers who have a positive approach to eradicating TB, James, and this might be with reference to the TB advisory service, what steps can be taken to empower Southwest farms to improve their TB resilience, do you think?
James Daniel
Well, yes, I won't come out from a veterinarian point of view. I think the TB advisory service is a fantastic opportunity for fantastic option performers and and why wouldn't you reach out? I guess there's an element of of taking ownership of it, so rather than seeing yourself as the victim of it. We're being aware that it is a risk.
It's like a risk of flooding, but it's more prevalent. Having a farm system is designed to be as resilient as possible against it. So perhaps in beef systems, that means taking animals through the finish. It may mean the sucker beef system is the most resilient because there's no need to buy anything in.
Everything goes straight to abattoir and therefore you work around movement licenses. Three areas where there's still a high prevalence. So there's the system approaches and the mindset approach. That doesn't change that it's a pretty challenging piece to deal with. And, you know, something that goes out to farmers that are under restriction or, or dealing with restrictions.
It's good to see we've had some wildlife, you know, the wildlife measures of having and proving to be effective. And, you know, it's going to be a fantastic thing. We can work together as an industry. And get out of it. Then, you know, the ability that gives us in terms of more free time on farm and less testing, um, you know, high quality and product in terms of, you know, that, that marketing piece we can tell, so it's everyone's, everyone's interest pulled together to get out of it.
And as Liz says, it's also taking ownership and everyone being individually responsible around their cattle movements, around their cattle sourcing, cattle purchasing. Because there's a lot of risk being taken, and those risks are costing them perhaps a lot of money, and certainly our neighbours and other farms in the area money as well.
So it's a community approach, um, and taking it positively. And actually I'd just add to that because I well remember when I was a kid that, I think it was ADAS as it was then, would send around monthly little bulletins to every, every farmer, and they would report on the number of incidents And it was almost like a badge of shame and thank goodness we've moved away from that, but it's like a little bit of that legacy potentially can prevent that thinking about it as a problem for the whole industry rather than for the individual farmer who's gone down with TB.
And I think that is, it's really healthy. that we're now more and more just looking at it as an industry problem, not an individual problem.
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Peter Green
I don't think it would really be possible or fair on today's guests or those from throughout the series to try and pick three specific points as showstoppers. Instead, I think it's probably more helpful to drill in on resilience. I think first of all, the question that came to me was why do we want to improve our resilience?
We've spoken a lot about it, but we operate in a marginal industry in really difficult conditions and often with with a single person who's expected to be chief exec, finance director, head of operations, t boy, you know, all at once. You know, and we've already said we're at a time of huge change with a new agricultural policy, new subsidy regimes, trade deals, potentially a new government in the offing, and there's an increased focus on climate change and food provenance that just wasn't there maybe 10 and certainly 20 years ago.
These pressures. Change the playing field and I think it really requires structural change of the industry and strategic change and probably quite big infrastructure changes to our businesses to to adapt if we're going to continue to farm, we need to be elastic as we heard today and we need to be able to return to shape when we suffer shocks and setbacks.
So I think that's why we want to improve our resilience. So Thank you. You know, the second point, what does resilience look like? James touched on it really early on, you know, for me, it starts with the farmer themselves. It's so easy, uh, to say that, but the people running the business need to be fit, um, and able to plan and deliver on that plan, you know, a common thread throughout this series has been mental health and, and I feel most.
mentally fit myself when I get time away from the business and time with people from outside the business. And again, we've heard about doing that today. You know, it's this perspective that Heather Wildman spoke about and. I often quote Matt Naylor's Farmers Weekly article from several years ago, where he encourages people to get off their farm once a day, out of their parish once a week, out of their county once a month, and out of their country once a year, you know, as you're able.
And if you take one thing away from this series, I think that's, that's the nugget. You know, get perspective, you know, get away from the farm, talk to different people. That perspective really helps us to see the business for what it is. I think also it helps us to not be victims rather than, you know, looking at the business through a magnifying glass.
And, and I know I feel much more able to see the strengths and weaknesses of my business when I'm, when I'm away from the farm and generally outside of the county. So. The big question, you know, how do I make my farm, my business, myself more resilient? Well, I think it comes back to the point we made earlier in the podcast, have a plan and what does that look like?
Well, talk about it, talk about it with other people, anyone who'll listen, write it down, review it, tweak it. Compare it with what actually happened and then do all of that again, you know, taking the time to write something down and talk about it almost always saves me the time it took to write down by saying it out loud, talking to somebody else.
I often hear the flaws in the plan, you know, before they've even been pointed out to me by someone else, also telling someone else improves that accountability I have to follow through with it because. I've told someone else I'm going to do it. You know, when real life gets in the way and I can't reseed a field or I can't sell the cattle that I planned, I've got to go back to the plan and change it.
The biggest difference that I feel is that I don't have to keep the ideas in my head, you know, I feel more in control. I've got more space in my head for something else. And I think that helps me to get a better balance between the time I spend thinking about my business and the time I spend thinking about my family, friends.
other projects and interests. We've touched on a lot there, you know, and we've tried to condense one series down into a few minutes. Liz. Can we distill resilience down to this, you know, in order to return to shape after a setback, we need to have perspective. Is that right?
Liz Bowles
Yes. And as you were talking, um, Peter, I was kind of also feeling that what's really so helpful to resilience.
is excitement about the business we're in. Um, because being really excited and enthusiastic just makes things have a point. Uh, and that, that is also really important to resilience. And it was something one of my sons said to me the other day, you know, about, you know, as we get older, our bodies can get less flexible.
And, you know, I think probably thinking about how we are within our bodies also affects how our minds are working. Um, and I know that sounds really trite, but I think it's true. And it's not just that sort of thing. And it's really speaking to what James was saying earlier about giving time for ourselves as human beings, because really the whole route of resilience.
does sit within our minds, and everything flows out from our minds. It's interesting, Peter, that you didn't say so much in that sort of bit there about soil or farming practices, because all of those are doable. But first of all, we have to have our minds in the right place. And that's where the real resilience starts.
James Daniel
Yeah, yeah, no, you've done a fantastic job of summarizing all that, um, yeah, wonderful information, Peter. I think for me, I thoroughly agree with Liz, is knowing what you want your life to look like and what you'd like to achieve personally as a family and perhaps in business. They are the most important things.
There is enough time. It's just how you choose what you choose to do with it. What are your priorities? Because the practices that you need to employ, well, they're a result of what you want to achieve. And then surround yourself with like minded people that can guide and assist and infuse you and help you.
And that will come with it as well. You know, nothing for, for me, I certainly changed. We've changed tack in terms of how we perhaps operate within farmers and the business is rather than going in and saying, you must manage your grazing like this. We go and say, well, How many days a week do you want to work and, you know, what's, what's the goal here?
Are we trying to have weekends off? Because if we are, we, we maybe won't be looking to shift rounds every day. Because that will be at odds of trying to have a weekend off. And so the personal piece is far more important piece. Brilliant. Thank you. So, um, so the jobs don't need to drive the outcome. It's the outcome that should shape the process.
And hopefully that outcome involves getting a better work life balance.
Peter Green
Brilliant. That's fantastic. Thank you both so much for your, your time and for all of your thoughts. We've ended the series on a pretty profound note there, but the question that I'm sure everyone really wants answered concerns scones.
And specifically, do you favour cream spread on jam or jam on top of the cream? Liz, it's over to you. Well, I'm a proud Devonian. And I've always called them scones, so I'm not quite sure why. Um, but the cream has to go on first, because otherwise the jam will simply slide off the scone. Don't know that I agree, but thank you very much, Liz.
James, it's over to you for the last time this series. What's it going to be? Yeah, well, I've had a win with the last say, haven't I? So, as a pro Cornishman, um, Oh no! And the fact that we're not ashamed of our cream means it can go on top, doesn't it? Jam goes on first. That's it. Absolutely. So the final result is in.
Uh, I feel it's a bit. Ha ha ha ha! So, Cream first has 12 points. But, Jam first... Also has 12 points. It's a tie. Whoever's booked all the guests. This series must have known it. It's a very democratic outcome. And, um, hopefully it, uh, is a reflection of, uh, of the professionalism that permeates this whole podcast.
That's it. That's all we've got time for, for today's episode and indeed the series. Um, again, a big thank you again to my guests, Liz Bowles and James Daniel. Thanks also to you for listening today and for listening to all of this first series of Farming Focus. If you have any feedback, we'd love to hear from you.
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You've been listening to farming focus brought to you by Cornish mutual. I've been Peter green. And for the last time, this series, it's goodbye from me. And everyone in the Cornish Mutual podcast team.
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