Our new President entertains the room

This year’s Harvest Lunch guest speaker was the Guild’s new President, author, presenter and journalist Tom Heap.

Tom quickly had the room laughing with his self-deprecating and irreverent sense of humour. In Trumpian style, and to much applause, he said his first tasks as our President would be building a wall to keep out the hordes of non-journalists trying to create content, and imposing a tariff on content from social media.

On a more serious note, Tom succinctly summed up some of the underlying issues affecting the world of farming: “For years, the dominant trend – similar to other ‘essentials’ like water and energy – is the demand for food to be as cheap as possible.

“The given justification for this is the undeniable poverty of some, but I suspect it is really driven by the greed of many of us who would rather spend money on luxuries or novelties.

“I think the impacts on the land surface of our world are profound – growing a lot of nutritious food well, with good outcomes for wildlife, climate, animal welfare and the women and men who actually do that growing is not cheap.”

However, like the Dean of Southwark, Tom, who is apparently nicknamed the “Grim Heaper” for his gloomy contributions to the BBC’s otherwise chipper Country File, also warned about the perils of a cycle of negativity.

“The doom groove is hard to escape with an extreme climate, volatile international situation, the siege mentality and amplified woe engendered by proposed tax changes. There is also an understandable reluctance to talk about how well you are doing, while others are struggling.

“But this dominant narrative of peril has actual harmful effects – an agricultural banker told me it artificially exaggerates the cost of borrowing for farmers as it makes the loan feel riskier. It also puts off young people from entering a business so regularly portrayed as poorly performing, thus lacking an exciting future.

Rounding off his speech, Tom looked to the future of food and farming and the positive role that the Guild’s members can play in it.

“The future is bright because there are so many new and growing demands on our land – food, nature, carbon, energy, building, recreation and more. There is a bit of a race for space, down here on earth, and the people who own that space or have the skills to profit from it are surely well placed.

“As are you in this room who have an experience and understanding which so many journalists and commentators lack. Go and make hay.”

Based on what we heard at the Harvest Lunch, the Guild is lucky to have such an enthusiastic rural champion and communicator as its President. Hopefully, we will be hearing much more from Tom during his tenure.

Tom Heap’s full speech, designed to be listened to, not read, but here it is should you wish to:

Thanks, President eh.

I am so humbled by your support and thanks for all of your votes! And if you, like so many of the population got me confused with that ginger farmer guy in the Cotswolds who runs a few acres and a petting zoo I am not Adam – It’s too late now, the election is over.

Oh no. wait a minute, when I say election- I mean selection. The Choice, how I assumed this elevated position, is a stitch up worthy of North Korea or the old fashioned British establishment way. Though this was less of the men in grey suits over beer and sandwiches but the more women in Schoffel waistcoats and tasteful tweed trim over an Aperol spritz, less smoke filled rooms more a gentle fragrance of Jo Malone with a hint of silage and diesel for authenticity.

But, far from being ungrateful or ashamed at this total lack of democracy in selecting a president, I look around the world and see it is totally on trend. The globe’s most powerful presidents have irrelevant elections already or, in the case of America, seem to be trying to rig the next one.

So in my first 100 days I will build a beautiful wall to keep out any journalists trying to sneak in from the world of business or environment – aliens in our midst! There will be import tariffs on all copy from social media. £10 pounds per into the presidential braided hat and sequined sash fund. And of course, a special military operation against, health correspondents – bloody self-righteous do-gooders. Let’s see them survive without food.

But now a bit about myself and my family. I was born where we lived in a converted council badger set – a true son of the soil. My mother – a gruel-maker – ground the rogue barley, grains gleaned from the field margins and occasional earthworms into a thin broth for me and my kindred settees which we shared with my father when he returned from eternal days yolked to the plough, pulled through the unyielding sod.

Are you getting this…you get the gist…can you get Ai to continue the embroidery along those lines for the official biography?

I am of course not to be confused with the Tom Heap, son of a diplomat and a nurse who grew up in a comfortable middle class home outside Cambridge who did play with a toy tractor with the farmers son next door. That’s the same guy who went to college, moved to London, worked for Sky News then the BBC. In 2003, the BBC were casting around for a new role of Rural Affairs correspondent to plug the expertise gap revealed by sending foreign news reporters to cover the hunting ban and countryside march story. So they appointed a then science correspondent who was living the wide open spaces of… Brixton!

In truth, I have been so lucky – right from the very start and continuing today – specialists who know far more than me have been unfailingly generous in their help and advice. Be they farmers, campaigners, land owners, journalists, rural businessmen and women, they have all helped to fill the void. I can never claim a farming background but at least – thanks to you – a faintly agricultural foreground.

But there have been some moments of abrupt education. At young farmers dinner in Lancashire a few year back it was time for the charity auction. Five enticing lots, three of which were straws of semen, different grades of course. Bidding was fierce and, as the guest of honour I was expected to join in. This wasn’t comedy, these were seriously desirable prizes. To me, that made it funnier. Swept up in the moment though I delivered the winning bid…for a ten foot galvanised steel gate. I thought the semen would have been wasted on me. To the best my knowledge that gate still lies un-collected somewhere near Preston.

I love working on the rural and farming patch – who wouldn’t want to hear from interesting people in beautiful places on the small matter of what we do with roughly three quarters of our nation and how we are fed. And such variety – agronomy, biology, weather, animal health and disease, trade, politics, mental health, crime, business, migration, wildlife, climate, diet. And so on.

And I think we are in a really exciting place with the attitude to food and farming. For years, the dominant trend – similar to other ‘essentials’ like water and energy – is the demand for food to be as cheap as possible. The given justification for this is the undeniable poverty of some but I suspect it is really driven by the greed of many of us who would rather spend money on luxuries or novelties. The politics of this are for a different forum but I think the impacts on the land surface of our world are profound – growing a lot of nutritious food well, with good outcomes for wildlife, climate, animal welfare and the women and men who actually do that growing is not cheap.

And deep down we all know that what really matters with food is not that it is dirt cheap but that it is there – do we have some on our plates, in our store cupboards and in our shops. Such growing anxiety is based primarily by global insecurity – both political and climate turmoil – but also by competing uses for land – a space race on Earth. As author of LandSmart – get the plug in – this is a bit of a hobby horse for me but I stand by the opening quote.

Now most people would think that is absurd, but it is true. Recently, another farmer walked me toward, the most profitable part of his patch. Where once crops grew – admittedly the drainage was poor and machinery occasionally sank – was now very different. With lilies, bull rushes, saunas and pontoons: it’s a lake for the cold-water swimmers of Staffordshire. They’ve got money not burn but to chill.

But back to our plates…We now even have the government recommending we store food in the face of a super El Nino and climate shocks. I spent a long while earlier this week talking with BBC colleagues about whether we should do a radio show on home growing, pickling, bottling being ‘Tom and Barbara’ for those who can remember the 70’s sitcom the ‘Good Life’ – prepping is no longer for wierdos. So should our farming industry be ‘prepping’ and what would that entail anyway? Most would agree that going all out for production in the short term undermines the ability of soil and ecosystems to yield good harvest in the long term. So where does true food security lie?

These issues are your meat and drink – shout about them.

And as I’m on the threat of global starvation…(after a fine lunch!)

I should acknowledge there is a tendency in journalism to accentuate the negative. This is pointedly revealed on Countryfile where much of the programme is celebratory and then I come on screen and the black clouds build, the hooves of the four horsemen approach and it’s all gone to hell.

Incidentally a newly published edition of Dante’s inferno has just been appeared adding an eight circle of hell known as the SFI claims process. Short lived but exquisitely painful apparently and likely to be back for renewed torment.

For being such a harbinger of misery, on otherwise cheery Sunday evenings I earned the online nick-name ‘Doom Lord’ and my personal favourite handle ‘The Grim Heaper’.

I am well aware that this narrative of peril is far from the full picture of farming and I remember talking about this to a senior editor at BBC News who replied “I am delighted for farmers when they are having a good time…but it’s not very interesting is it?”

I get his point, but don’t entirely agree which is one reason why I wrote two books focused on solutions rather than problems. 39 ways to Save the Planet looked at climate and LandSmart focusing on land use.

So, I do want to extend this quest to avoid perpetual misery into journalism ask the question if we have the balance right in farming coverage in both the specialist press, newspapers, broadcasters and social media.

If you asked people how UK farm incomes had done in the last three years I bet they’d be stunned to hear they had risen by close to 40%. Although I expect they will fall back this year.

The doom groove is hard to escape with an extreme climate, volatile international situation, the siege mentality and amplified woe engendered by proposed tax changes. There is also an understandable reluctance to talk about how well you are doing, while others are struggling.

But this dominant narrative of peril has actual harmful effects – an agricultural banker told me it artificially exaggerates the cost of borrowing for farmers as it makes the loan feel riskier. It also puts off young people from entering a business so regularly portrayed as poorly performing thus lacking an exciting future.

I stress, this is self-criticism too. I need to work harder at finding and framing success stories to appeal to audiences and editors. Get out of the groove.

The future is bright because there are so many new and growing demands on our land – food, nature, carbon, energy, building, recreation and more. There is a bit of a race for space, down here on earth and the people who own that space or have the skills to profit from it are surely well placed. As are you in this room who have an experience and understanding which so many journalists and commentators lack. Go and make hay.