From roof to resource - The AG Show is teaming up with a project across nine farms in Cumbria that’s helping farmers kit out their buildings to collect and reuse rainwater. AHDB’s Beef and Lamb Engagement Manager for the North West, Karl Pendlebury, pops by to chat about what it’s all about.

Good job Karl’s on hand too, because Hannah’s attempts to join live from her parents’ calving shed are… well, let’s just say temperamental! Karl also talks about his role working directly with farmers - something our Chair, Emily Norton, recently dug into on the Meet the Farmers - The Big Debate podcast.

And Charlotte’s got the latest from the EU, where plant‑based foods might soon be banned from using labels like "fillet" or "bacon".

SOME USEFUL BITS (FROM AHDB & BEYOND)

Protecting the water supply for your crops | AHDB

West Cumbria Rivers Trust - Caring For West Cumbrian Rivers & Lakes

Farmers React to the Iran Conflict. And Does the AHDB Provide Value for Money? Big Debate ep10

Plant-based brands brace for ‘chaos’ after EU rule change | The Grocer

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We recording?

Yeah.

That's hilarious. You're going to have to watch me put on my overalls.

It's like a strip shape but in reverse.

And put it on more layers.

Yeah.

Oh, how naughty.

What's potentially the nicest day of the year?

That's flyman mode right there.

So what are you holding up there, Hannah?

So that is a pair of muk boots with. I mean, they're a bit thick because it's warmer now. I don't really need them this thick, but they're just a pair of, like, bib and brace overalls.

But I have it kept in fireman mode, they call it.

Nice to know you're giving this podcast your full attention this week.

She's looked at the script, Martin, and

thought, Jesus, I've only got half a dozen words. It's not worth getting out of bed.

You are

nothing.

You're fine, don't worry.

You just carry on.

So rude.

Hello, I'm Hannah Clarke and my aim by the end of this episode is to actually make it into the carving shed.

I'm Charlotte Forkes-Rees and I'm going to be sat in my office still.

I'm Carl Pendlebray, new to the Ag show and welcome to the Ag Show, Carl.

A big welcome from us motley crew. Welcome to the show, Carl. It's really good to have you along.

We are so pleased to have you and I understand you're going to be joining us to talk about an environmental project taking place up in Cumbria.

Yeah, that's right.

It's a rainwater harvesting project. Nine farmers on board having fully funded kits installed to see how beneficial collecting

that water is and how it can

impact on their business in a positive way.

In the main cow building, when we finish milking and they go back to bed, there are six troughs all filling at once and sometimes they can start to go empty. So we were looking at a way of supplementing, boosting up the supply just at that peak time.

We'll also be hearing from Emily Norton, who's been talking about the value of the levy and explain how it's used.

Putting that bit of pressure on AHDB as a board to kind of say, well, how can we be more effective at making sure those messages are heard?

How can we be more effective at, say, this is really important that we punctuate this better, but it's certainly something that I'm aiming for is how can we do less better?

A reminder, new episodes of the Ag show drop every Wednesday at midday, available wherever you get your Podcasts with audio

and video versions for every show. Just subscribe at the relevant places to make sure you don't miss an episode.

And as always, please do get in touch with us here at the Ag Show. We would always love to hear from you. We want to hear your stories, we want to know what you're getting up to on farm or in industry.

Please comment on any of our social posts or get in touch with us. An email agshowdb.orguk Carl, Hannah and I

are so excited to have you on the show with us. We're. We are both very fortunate to have worked with you a number of times in your day job.

But I think that might be a great point for you to actually introduce yourself to our listeners so they can find out a little bit about you.

It's fantastic to be here and it's

fantastic to see that you're still talking to me after working with me out in the field as well.

So that's a really great bonus.

I'm Karl Pendlebury. I work in the beef and lamb team and I'm an engagement manager for the Northwest, covering Cheshire, Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Cumbria.

That's sort of my patch that we really cover and there's four others in the team that covered the rest of England.

You've recently been involved in something quite interesting, I understand, about rainwater harvesting. Could you tell us a bit about more about that project? Cause it's something I don't know a huge amount about.

It's been a fast learning curve for

me as well because I watched the

waterfall out the skies and I think there's another load of water that's come down.

We're not going to do anything for

a few days on the field now, especially in the northwest, has this huge amount of water volume.

I think there's only Derbyshire, actually more

that has more rainfall than Cumbria. But interestingly, it's a lot drier because of the limestone. It just sits in Cumbria.

So the rainwater harvesting project is sort of come to life because of a lady called Tasha Pearson who works for the Waver Wan Pool catchment area. Hell, that's a mouthful.

Every time say that is a big mouthful. So I think we'll just call it the West Cumbria Rivers Trust from now on, just to make it a little

easier and to stop those little word slips. There's a few other people that are sort of supporting this.

There's the farming network, Cumbrian Farming network that are supporting it, csf, the catchment sensitive farming and they sort of all come together and really Trying to pull these together. There's been nine kits, fully funded in entirety, for these farmers to collect the water and use it in whatever way they see fit.

So, Kar, it sounds like it was an absolutely massive undertaking and this project is by no means small.

So I know you recently caught up with some of the farmers that are involved and found out a little bit about where they source their water from at present and where they hope to use the rainwater that's collected.

We currently get it from the borehole, but we've been having one or two issues with the borehole, so now hopefully we'll use the rainwater harvester. We started to do a wet mix for the cows.

You know, we'll use probably thousand litres per day in the mix and we just thought it'd be beneficial for the, for the cows because it's so close to the cows. So we're just going to feed the cows.

When you're milking a number of cows, you know they drink a lot of water and it's just a bit more water security. So we have several boreholes that can break down in peak times. They maybe don't keep up, so it's just another source of water just to help.

We'll use it in yard washing. A bit of a backup there. If there was ever a fire on the farm, like an emergency quantity of water to go to crop spraying, we could draw from that.

Definitely help with a bit of water security, having another source of water. So we're mainly spring water supplied, but in the drier summers that can dry up.

So that'll give us another source of water and it's predominantly, well, all going to be used for spraying, really, as we've got two or 300 acre arable as well, we can use that water for spraying and hold the other spring water back for cattle.

We'll hear from another of those signed up to the project, dairy farmer John Bailey, a little later.

But the three we just heard from there were Johnny Mann, John Graham, and proving that you don't have to be called John to be part of this project, we kicked off with Ian Bruff to help explain a bit more about the project. I caught up with farming officer Tasha Pearson, who began by telling me how it all came about.

The West Cumbria Rivers Trust, like many of the rivers trusts nationally, work with local communities and organisations and land managers to improve watercourses in lots of different ways, whether that's water quality or geomorphology or just to introduce better quality habitats throughout the Landscape. My particular project is very much focused on water quality specifically, so it's not so much about.

You might have heard in the media big stories about re wiggling and that kind of thing. This story is about working with land managers to improve water quality.

Let's just move on to the project and, you know, it's really fantastic that you asked us to be a part and support and deal with this. What is rainwater harvesting?

So rainwater harvesting is literally just collecting water from the sky and then allowing it to, through gutters, collect up into storage containers to be used for multiple different purposes on farm or even within our own homes.

And why is that so important to this region?

So there's numerous things that make rainwater harvesting so valuable and so beneficial. One of them particularly is the benefits of the water.

Rainwater is actually got really fantastic benefits to farm, whether that would be livestock drinking water. They've shown that actually livestock do better drinking from rainwater than they would from a mains or from borehole.

There's increasing erratic weather patterns going on nationally and worldwide. So we've got to think forward, thinking about how to kind of have some water security for the future.

And it makes so much sense to be collecting the free stuff falling from the sky rather than worrying about trying to pay those water bills from the mains or what's going to happen with our aquifers as well.

When you started bringing this project together, how did you go about actually finding the funding for that? Because these are totally funded kits for the farmers involved in this project.

My role specifically is funded by rap, which are an independent charity based in the UK and it stands for Waste and Resources Action Program. So that's my role funded even that kind of work within West Cumbria Rivers Trust.

But they have just introduced this last year a new funding stream within RAP called the Nature Based Solutions Fund. And we were really excited, obviously at this opportunity and we were kind of having various discussions about what we could do with that money.

Where would help the farmers the most and be beneficial for both environmental purposes, for environmental impact and for farm resilience and rainwater harvesting came up and that just seemed like a really logical choice that would be beneficial for everybody.

It's sort of a chicken and egg situation. This, because you need the funding to go to the farmers and say, would you like to have one of these and can you be involved?

But likewise, to apply for the funding, you need a commitment from farmers to sort of say, yeah, we will. How did you go about recruiting farmers to be involved in such a Fantastic opportunity.

It was quite tricky. Yeah, definitely. So what we did, we do a series of farmer meetings throughout the year as part of the project.

And so one of the topics that had come up was rainwater harvesting. One of my colleagues actually had had this organization, this gentleman, come up and talk about it to her farmers.

So it was like it was a brilliant topic. I'd actually gone and watched and thought, yeah, we want to do the same thing with the farmers in the catchment I work in.

So we did the rainwater harvesting meeting and then in that meeting, those who had attended, we had a really good discussion about the potential of being some funding available to actually install these within their farms.

But obviously there's this balance of kind of wanting people to engage and be interested and potentially commit to something, but we couldn't actually promise at the stage that we could actually do it. So I was very keen to make that clear that we'd wanted to do this thing, but we didn't know if we could get the cash together.

So, yeah, it worked out in the end, thankfully. Yeah, yeah.

And I can see that sort of trying to keep that balance of that whole political sphere of promising but not promising, but actually trying to work in the background to get the funding and bring all that to life at the same time as that can be a real balancing act. It's almost like the scales of justice trying to be out there and making that happen.

You don't want to disappoint people, do you? And there were so many interested farmers involved and you don't want to raise people's hope.

As part of the funding application, we absolutely did need those specific farms that were interested listed, so it was something that we had to have those serious conversations beforehand. So, yeah, it's working, it's paying off.

What does the project require from the individual farmers?

So I've tried really hard to keep that pressure off them.

There's obviously everybody's aware there's so much going on in farming and part of the beauty of this type of funding and my role is that we're trying to keep that pressure off and deliver things that are beneficial for the farm, but not kind of burdening them with more paperwork and more nightmare to have time and pressure to deal with things. So it should all work very smoothly with limited involvement from the farmer and just basically a thumbs up and yes, please, I'd like that.

We'll hear more from Tasha as well as one of the farmers taking part

later on in the show.

Hannah, it still appears that you're sat in the kitchen. You're not trying to go out to the carving shed today?

Look, I am bibbed up, braced up, I've got my boots on, don't tell my mum that. I've got my wellies on in the kitchen.

But I can't get the Riverside app that we use to record to work on my work phone because I can't take my whole laptop into the yard

because we haven't got WI fi down there.

We're not that posh. So, yeah, I'm still sat in the kitchen, but I'll keep you updated on whether I can connect to the studio or not on my phone. How exciting.

On the move, everyone. So the reason I'm here is I'm farm sitting for my parents who've gone on holiday and yeah, baptism of fire into carving 50 odd supper cows.

Thankfully they're not all dropped this week because that would be quite intense. Can you still hear me all right? No, I've lost you.

Right, apologies, producer Martin here. We appear to have had a few technical difficulties connecting with Hannah in the carving shed at her parents charlo.

Though I think it is time we did the news and we've got a few stories, haven't we, kicking around.

Yeah, and in the news for me this week it is around a decision out of Brussels that's actually from a couple of weeks ago now and it actually is cutting across the alternative protein debate and it centres on what meat free products can and importantly can't be called. And to quote the groceries, plant based brands are bracing for chaos.

Now, after months of negotiations, the European Parliament and Council of European Union have announced plans to restrict food labelling rules. In this they say that plant based products could continue using some familiar format based terms. So your likes of burgers and sausages.

But a whole host of traditionally meaty words are now being taken off the table. In total, the EU has proposed that 31 terms will no longer be able to be used on vegetarian or vegan products.

So this list includes species names, your likes of beef, pork, turkey, lamb for example, but also cut specific terms. So drumsticks, fillet steak, ribs, chop and importantly bacon.

So while you'll still be likely to see veggie or vegan burgers and sausages on shelves, you won't be able to be seeing plant based steaks or meat free bacon in the near future. It's also not going to apply just to plant based foods either.

It's also looking to cover lab grown or cultivated meat, meaning that these products won't be able to use Such additional meat names if and when they reach the European market.

Now this will impact us here in the UK as while we may technically have left the EU because we still trade significantly with them, we are subject to the same rules and regulations. Do have to caveat this.

It is still waiting on formal approval and final vote in the European Parliament, but it is expected that it will go through and that there will be a three year transition period that would be granted for producers to adapt to these new labelling rules. I think for us it is really important, isn't it? It's about safeguarding the value and heritage and expertise behind livestock product.

And the EU is arguing that these names belong to animal agriculture. So ring fencing them really helps to strengthen the farmer's position within the food supply chain.

And there are obviously the other side of the coin, the critics and they are saying that these rules are going to add complexity rather than clarity. And they've also posed that is this going to raise some confusion with consumers?

But actually I think that's an interesting point to raise because the other year we did at AHDB a piece of research which was looking into how consumers were perhaps feeling around the labeling when it came to meat free products. And it's already showing that there is uncertainty at fixture with how things are labelled.

So shoppers can struggle to distinguish meat free products from the meat versions, particularly when branding and language closely mimics each other. So they're already thinking that terms such as steak and bacon shouldn't be used on plant based products.

So really interesting that this is coming up. Obviously we featured the dairy update on the show a couple of months ago, but nice to see that meat's getting some support coming through too.

And as if by magic, mid news, she's back. Hello again, Hannah.

Here I am. I've made it down the yard. The signal is strong enough just to reach me down the yard. So I've made it to the carving pen.

Everyone's having a bit of, a bit of a snooze midday snooze. A bit of a rest after their feeding this morning. See, it's all quiet.

You shouldn't have said that word, Hannah. That's the kiss of death. Do not use the Q word.

No, I shouldn't say that Q word, should I? Because it's been quite a busy week up till now. We've had about eight or nine calves born this week.

So the reason I'm here is my parents are on holiday, so I'm farm sitting in the middle of carving, which is fun. A Bit of a baptism of fire, but touch wood, everything's gone fairly smoothly so far. Again, I probably shouldn't have said that.

There we go, tucking fate.

I've touched wood for you, Hannah, don't you worry. And I think it's very wise on your parents decision to go.

Yeah, I'm gonna go on holiday when all the hard work really, you know, kicks off with carving. Hannah can deal with that, no problem.

So who have you got with you there, Hannah?

She looks like a Charlotte to me.

Here we are. I'm here with Charlotte the cow. Oh no, I've lost you. Oh.

No sooner did she appear than she disappears. So on with the rest of the show. Charlotte, I think we're in the middle of a bit more news, weren't we?

Yes. I want to flag as well a massive congratulations to our own Emily Norton.

So she is the AHDB Chair and she has recently been appointed as a member of the UK's Climate Change Committee. They are the independent statutory body that advises the UK and evolved governments on climate targets and progress.

So Emily has been selected for her recognised expertise in natural capital, food systems and farming, expertise that will help inform national decisions at a crucial time for climate and agriculture. And this appointment is made directly by the UK and devolved government ministers and is entirely separate from her role at hdb.

So great news, massive congratulations to Emily. I think it's fabulous that she's getting this recognition.

Absolutely.

And speaking of our Emily, she was actually a guest on a recent episode of the Meet the Farmers, the big debate podcast defending actually the level levy that funds AHDB now host Ali Hunter Blair was asking her how we can ensure that all levy payers understand the value of the organization.

I feel like I still am fairly young and fairly forward thinking in the way that I. An open minded.

Yeah.

You encourage people that are shut down to it completely and would say that actually they don't understand where their levy goes. They don't. And not just that, not just the arable sector, the oil sectors and say, well, it's a complete waste of time frankly.

And I don't know what I'm getting back from my money. All I know is that every time I get my check in there is so many pounds off it going towards the levy.

Yeah, absolutely. So I mean I'm always happy to pick up the phone and have a chat with anybody who's feeling like that.

You know, it's absolutely part of it to kind of help people Understand, but also I think from my perspective, you know, continuously putting that bit of pressure on AHDB as a board to kind of say well how can we be more effective at making sure those messages are heard?

How can we be, be more effective at say this is really important that we punctuate this better but it's certainly something that I'm aiming for is how can we do less better. Right. So you know, there's sort of this bit where you can be very noisy.

You know you talk about kind of press, press agendas at the moment but I think it's, I think it's important that we, we communicate the key messages, the most important things that it is that we're doing that we feel and levy pay so that the sort of the sector council structures feel are the most important and really major on just kind of getting those basic messages across so that people have more of an opportunity to kind of know what we're doing.

I think because, you know, because there is a news cycle, because there's kind of quite a lot of noise and stuff that's going on, I think it is a danger of getting lost.

And so part of the challenge in today's society when there's news being thrown around everywhere is that we focus on really important things that do sit behind the overall piece.

And some of the work around nutrition is critical from that perspective and not because we're being noisy about it, but because other people can then build their messages and their marketing campaigns on, on top of that information. But also just that sense of coming together and developing co created solutions for the things that we're all facing.

I think that sense of evolution is incredibly important. So Ali, over time get involved, right?

If you're passionate about this stuff and you're passionate about the future of the industry, it's a hugely valuable resource.

But we can always do a better job of making sure that it's delivering as effectively as possible against what people feel is critical for their sector.

If you want to see more of Emily Norton on the Meet the Farmers, the big debate podcast, do search for it. It's on YouTube and yeah, reminded me of when we had Emily on, on a previous pod that AHDB did.

You were involved, weren't you Charlotte, on Agonomics. But probably high time we get her back on the ag show, give her her ag show debut.

Definitely. She is a fabulous speaker.

So what I would recommend is if any of our listeners have any hot topics which you think would be really interesting to perhaps put towards Emily, do write in email. Is agshowdb.orguk or reach out on any of our socials. We love to hear from you and we love your suggestions even more.

And I'm just going to type out a quick email to Emily to tell her that we've just signed her, everybody, that she's going to be appearing on the. On the Eggshow at some point and it's free reign as to what you want to ask her. And on that note, let's just have a bit of a timeout.

You're listening to the Eggshell. Hello. And I'm here on my parents farm on the rural fringe, urban fringe of Birmingham, currently stood in a cow pen.

If I look over there, I can see the BT tower in the middle of central Birmingham, which is a bit bizarre, but yeah, that's life on the urban fringe. So I'm here farm sitting mum and dad while they're on holiday and I've just about got Internet connection to join

the studio and we're very grateful that you have, so feel free to chip in. But Charlotte, we've still got Mr. Pendlebury with us, haven't we?

So we are still joined today with Karl Pendlebury who has been telling us all about this incredibly interesting rainwater project that he's been part of.

So touching on something that we just heard Emily say about how important it is getting out to levy payers, getting them to understand some of the work that we're doing and make them aware of some of the things that we've got available. Karl, I think it'd be really interesting to talk to you a little bit more about your role and the things that you're doing because you're.

That is something that is, I would think, incredibly important in your position.

Yeah. The importance of making the building in Coventry shine to all those farmers out in the field is megally important.

None more so than the work that the colleagues do within that building.

You know, the genetics teams, the marketing teams, the export teams, the education teams are all backed up by the evidence and insight that's brought into at AHDB and trying to relay that out of how that money spent to actually make a real impact for their businesses is so important.

The fact is, is that it's really

difficult to get those messages out in isolation.

So you really need to tie it into other industry messages and other areas that they really need to focus on to get their businesses moving forward whilst making it important that actually this money's been spent on the projects that enable that particular topic to be spoken about more freely. Collaboration through the industry is key to doing that.

Working with some of the big businesses, working with some local businesses and actually drawing in their audience as well as their expertise to actually join it all together is a real facilitation skill. And we shouldn't underestimate how great the people are in the engagement teams that actually. Actually doing that and drawing those people together.

Carl, I'm super interested in your rainwater harvesting project, so can we talk about that a bit more, please?

Yeah, I think the installation is going to be taking place the week commencing the 15th of May and sort of over that week, two week period, I'm really looking forward to going, catching up with the contractor, capturing some footage of how that takes place, what's involved, the kit that's involved and really keeping tabs on how the project moves forward all the way through, right up to its completion.

And I understand you've been speaking to another of these farmers that's involved within this project, haven't you, Carl?

Let's hear from the dairy farmer, John Bailey, one of the nine farmers who's got involved in the project, in fact using some of his own money to get slightly bigger kit. John told me why he was keen to get started.

If you can give it a try at virtually no outlier yourself, then there's always scope going forward, if we do like it to, you know, scale it up.

Yeah.

And build on what we're going to put in now.

So just now are you mains water

borehole, Water spring, predominantly borehole. The houses and anywhere that's used for food production. So that, you know, the washing out and the pile and things are mains.

Yeah, but washing down, spraying, anything to do with the, you know, everything. Everything. The stock, drinks and dairy farm. The main water usage is stock.

Yeah.

And that's all borehole.

Were you worried about the boreholes drying

up through summer or is that not an issue?

It's not an issue because we've got some big tanks that the borehole fills and then a transfer pump pumps on to. So. So the borehole is running nearly all the time, but it. But it does seem to keep up.

But we can get faster transfer from the tanks as and when required. We've only been here three years, but up to yet that's not been an

issue in three years. And thinking about rainwater harvesting at three years in, that's pretty advanced thought processes. You can see people moving into farms

and the several years before they've even

got the farm to a vision of what they thought when they bought it without Moving it forward.

I'm not,

no.

But that thought process is what keeps

you in front of the game and

keeps that whole system going.

So actually being within a project system and being part of nine units going in within a close area geographically, it must be a help in terms of maybe being in contact with one or two people to see what's going on there and how that's going to.

Yeah, I mean, actually, we've got involved in more initiatives like this since we came up here than I used to before. Precisely because, like you say, it's a way of, you know, getting to know other people in a similar situation, doing similar things.

Yeah, It's a way of getting to know not just the people, but what suppliers they're using, what, you know, the way they approach things. Given that the land's slightly different, the seasons are slightly different than what we were used to. So.

Yeah, so that's partly been why we've got tended to get involved in more initiatives like this.

Yeah.

So just going back to the rare water harvesting project itself, what do you think will be the biggest benefit to the farm?

The primary reason was that in the main cow building, when we finish milking and they go back to bed, there are six troughs all filling at once. Sometimes they can start to go empty. So we were looking at a way of supplementing, boosting up the supply just at that peak time.

So that was our main reason. The secondary motivation, if you will, was where we came from.

Before, anytime you put a building up as a planning condition, you had to have some rainwater attenuation strategy in place, be it ponds or the crates you put in the ground. It was new when we came up here, two years old remain cow building when we came up here. And it's got nothing like that, it's all just straight.

And that didn't just seem right. Okay. The tanks that we're putting in now might not be enough to have a massive impact, but they will give us a degree of slowing that water down.

We've put in another couple of buildings up now. We've not been asked to do anything like that, but you never know, it might come in.

And so if we can learn a bit about managing this and see what, to what degree we are holding water back.

Yeah.

If in future it came that it did become a, you know, a requirement, we might be able to say, well, actually the way we're doing it is rainwater harvesting. We're already catching X. We could do another two roofs and triple that. Would that suffice to meet the requirements

rather than almost retrofit something.

So it's just a way of learning and just trying to maybe be a bit ahead. It seems to make a bit more sense once you've gone to the trouble slowing it down and catching it, to try and use some of it.

Would you recommend other people to get involved in these sorts of projects?

If there's an event promoting something, go along and see what. What, you know, whether you think it might be interesting because this was only, like you say, with other priorities at the moment.

So this was only a, a future thing that, you know.

But it's very much brought it to the fore, the fact that, well, we can do a small, tasted scheme now at very little expense to us, learn actually what it means for us and then maybe develop it going forward. So, yeah, if you think you might be half interested and there's a. And there's some information out there.

Yeah, get involved, see whether, whether, whether you are interested. We could have come away from that day and just not taken any further, couldn't we? You know, it was only half a day, it wasn't fantastic.

We got our dinner and you got your dinner.

What better could there be than going

to a meeting where there's some food?

Absolutely.

Class.

Carl, you should have told me there was a free lunch involved. I would have been there like a shot.

Free lunch.

Everybody's welcome.

Let's give the final say to Tasha Pearson from West Cumbria Rivers Trust, who reassured me that we're on the same page when it comes to the next steps of the project.

The contractor's coming in May, I think it is.

Yes.

We're probably going to come up and have a word with the contractor, get him on camera.

I've already warned him that.

We've already warned him. That's a really great place to be.

We'll get the makeup artist ready, we'll get all that sorted and just really look at how these installations take place, because I think that'd be really interesting and for future projects it'll actually be instrumental in trying to demonstrate to other farmers how that actually takes place and what happens. Can you just tell us now how working with AHDB and the other collaborators on this has actually sort of helped sway the decisions.

We're fantastically fortunate that we've been working with HDB and Cumbria Farmer Network and Catchment Sensitive Farming, all these wonderful partners within the project and that's really helped open doors, share resources, kind of make the most optimised resources, and also with connections through other farms.

So we've all got kind of our little bubble of contacts that we know, but having sharing those resources has really helped everybody to kind of make more of a positive impact within their own project.

Just from an AHDB perspective, and being in this region and working in this region, actually, it's really great collaborating with all organizations that you've just mentioned, and particularly Waver wampool, because actually it gets us into other avenues that actually the work that other areas of AHDB are doing actually come to the fore as well, and people are farmers and not just necessarily just as aware of those avenues either.

So actually, bringing all that together with example, the environment team and genetics teams within these places actually is a really great thing to do. So we're delighted to be on board and delighted to try and help with this knowledge exchange of how this project comes and works and comes to life.

We're delighted to have you. It's been brilliant.

Thank you very much.

I think that we'll just watch this space and watch the farmers progress and actually really enjoy how this comes together.

But actually, really, at the end of November, somewhere around there, when we come back to see these farmers and see how they progressed and what if there's been any hidden benefits to it, I think that would be the real place to be.

Hannah, did you curse us by saying the Q word, seeing as you ended up dropping off?

Yeah, I must have done. Although nothing's calm while I've been out

here, so I take that as a win.

And I have to say the irony is not lost on me at all that we are talking about rainwater harvesting on this episode, seeing as I've got such glorious sunshine that's basking through my window. But I do think that is probably all we've got time for this week.

So thank you so much to Carl for joining us on the show and talking us through the this incredibly interesting project and the impact that this may be going to be having on the farmers who are getting involved, as well as a bit more about his role. If you would like to get in touch with us, feel free to email us@the agshowhdb.org UK or contact us on any of our social channels.

We do love to hear from you. I don't know we're going to get a goodbye from Hannah today because she looks like she's just had to run off across the yard. Bye for now.

Right, guys, I'm back from the carving shed. What is it you wanted me to say? And record hello. I think they've gone. Oh, well, cup of tea?