With bluetongue cases firmly into four digits this season, on this week's AG Show we're hearing first-hand what that can mean for farmers. Devon beef and sheep farmer Richard Stanbury joins us to share his experience after some of his livestock became infected.

Speaking candidly from his farm on the edge of Exmoor, Richard talks about losing sheep, the mental toll of the outbreak and why he's determined to help other farmers understand the reality of the disease and cut through some of the misinformation around it.

Plus, we've got the latest drought update, we explore whether hybrid meat products could take off at the supermarket and we hear about an extraordinary toy tractor collection that's heading to auction.

SOME USEFUL BITS (FROM AHDB & BEYOND)

Bluetongue virus latest news | AHDB

Bluetongue: latest situation - GOV.UK

Bluetongue virus webinars | AHDB

Lidl launches 'first-of-its-kind' hybrid meat range | The Grocer

John Deere enthusiast puts prized 500-model collection up for sale - FarmingUK News

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Phil, you're looking awfully smug.

Why are you looking so smug?

Someone's just told you you've posed an intelligent question.

Well, that's been part of one of the interviews we've done.

Someone has actually used the words, that's a very good question.

Which obviously is the ultimate ego boost for a podcast host, isn't it?

And means that the answer will definitely be cut from the show.

That's not gonna see the light of day, is it, Martin?

Absolutely not.

But I'll give you a moment now to shine.

I think you were about to give us an anecdote of Sunday league football.

It was up there being told that up there with my experience of coaching my son's football team last week, where, you know, normally you get, like, parents just, like, shouting abuse at you as a coach.

But I had one drive past opposition team misses put down the window and say that I was a lovely coach.

Was that parent happy because their child's team had beaten your child's team and they want you to carry on doing what you're doing because their child's team would like to play you every week?

Come to think of it, because we're playing a new format where you play multiple games in an hour.

We got thrashed.

Hi.

I'm Charlotte Forkes-Rees.

And I'm Phil Maiden.

Welcome to The AG Show.

This week we return, unfortunately, to a familiar subject, Blue Tongue.

With the number of cases in the UK this season now firmly into four digits, we'll hear from a farmer who's been hit hard by the virus.

When you've got a sheep lying in your arms, it gets you right down.

It was exhausting.

I was burnt out.

We didn't spend any time with the family or the kids and, you know.

And you just felt awful because you had to do what's right.

At the end of the day, you're farmer and you've got to get those sheep back.

Right?

We'll also pick out some of the stories we've seen of late that we think you might be interested in.

A reminder, new episodes of the Ag show drop Wednesdays at midday.

Available wherever you get your podcasts with.

Audio and video versions.

Just subscribe to make sure you don't miss an episode.

Please do, because we do like having.

You listen and watch and make sure you get in touch.

We love hearing from you, so comment on any of our social posts or email agshob.org.uk We've talked a lot about Bluetongue on the podcast, but hearing directly from farmers who've experienced it is invaluable.

Richard Stanbury is one of those rich.

Farms beef and sheep on the edge of Exmoor and is keen to help dispel any myths we've heard about the virus.

Rich, thank you for joining us.

Can you take us back to when Blue Tongue first came onto your radar on the farm and what, what was going through your mind?

Yeah, so all seems a bit of a nightmare now and things have picked up.

But yeah, if we go back to middle of July, we didn't know what was really going on.

We didn't really hear much about the other places over Exmoor had it, but it was kind of kept quite quiet amongst the farming community, which is typical.

Vets started calling.

I think at that point I was wondering whether we had something on the farm or not.

Things weren't looking quite 100%.

We had a outbreak of like cod last year, which was the first time, and it feels obviously bad feet and they keep on.

So we were thinking, well, maybe we're dealing with a bit of that, as the sheep were just playing up on their feet a bit.

But there was no smell with it or anything, it was just, just couldn't really see anything.

But with cod, that is early signs.

So I was just treating them for God with anti inflammatories and antibiotics and every day it kind of ramped up a bit until the end of July.

There was a Saturday where I was supposed to be going.

It was summer holidays and I've been treating them, working with these sheep quite a lot.

I haven't spent any time with the kids and every day it kind of got more and more.

And there was a Saturday lunchtime, got about heading out and it was going to be, we're supposed to be leaving at 12 o'.

Clock.

It was half past four and I was still treating these lame sheep and I couldn't really work out why.

There was two that I couldn't catch and by the next day, those two that I couldn't catch because I said, no, I'm going out with the kids, I've had enough, I'm going out.

And the next morning, tongue had all crusted up.

The lesions in the mouth, it looked hollow.

And within 24 hours after that they were dead.

So the treatments that I would do in were obviously what I thought was a card, were actually treating and helping the it go any further.

So then I was like, I rang a vet, rang apha.

I've got two blue 10 cases here.

I had the vets come in for a TB test on the Monday anyway, so that was all booked in.

They said we can do the bloods if we want.

It wasn't necessary, but we decided, well, we've got the vets here tomorrow, we may as well kick on and get them done.

Within that week.

Then cases were 50 to 100 cases of sheep a day that I was treating for.

And then we got the vaccine into them and it kind of just stopped.

We lost several.

Well, we didn't lose.

We lost four sheep, which we were really lucky with.

That's about 14, 15 lambs somewhere around that.

I didn't go on and vaccinate the lambs because I didn't know I ordered the vaccine for the ewes.

I had a short supply of the vaccine.

They were prioritizing kind of use, I thought.

So I just went along with the ewes and the cows and then ended up treating everything in the end.

It was just one of those horror movies really.

Every day, go to the spheres.

The sheep would lie down, they were hollow, they weren't moving.

You had to get them up.

What do you think stopped you vaccinating sooner?

So the total cost to vaccinate everything here was going to be £12,000 a year.

Strangely enough, most farmers haven't got that sort of cash just waiting around, especially in the spring of the year where cash flow's tight.

Cash flow is even tighter now because we've had to pay for that.

We've had all the treatment costs and the lambs.

We'd usually do 600 lambs sold by now and we sold 130.

And that's all to do with the loss of weight in those sort of.

In those sort of gross really.

So like from the disease or virus, it's kind of.

But they melt kind of inside.

So we lost like you could have a fat lamb that's 45 kilos and then they would get the virus and then they could be back to 25, like within days.

So, yeah, that's obviously now, looking back.

Yeah, it would have.

It would have been a cost effective way because we had sold lambs and we would have, you know, hindsight and everything else.

So would you have done anything differently if you had your time again?

Yeah, I'd have vaccinated sooner now, obviously, because I didn't really understand.

When you looked at the APHA website, it was one case here with one sheep and one bullock.

What I didn't, you know, like, I'm one case on their map now after five weeks of waiting for blood tests.

So I'm finally one case and we had treated 700 animals that we know of with the virus.

It sounds like you've had quite a.

Quite a stressful time.

Let's.

And that's, that's definitely not.

And play.

That's playing it down a bit, isn't it?

Let's be honest.

But what about the impact on you?

How has it affected you these last few months?

Now?

I feel absolutely fine.

But at the time when I was going through it, you didn't know when it was going to stop.

You didn't know what you were going to wake up to.

And because you're subconscious thinking about that, you don't sleep.

We had a TB test amongst it as well, which definitely didn't help.

We had lots else going on and, you know, I had loads and loads of work to do and all I was doing was treating sheep eight to 10 hours a day, basically, which these sheep, some of them would like.

You basically having to get water into them by a bottle.

And when you've got a sheep, they're basically.

You've tried and tried and tried and basically dying in your arms.

I think, like, you know, it gets you right down.

And mentally and physically that it was exhausting.

I was burnt out.

We didn't spend any time with the family or the kids and you know.

And you just felt awful because you had to do what's right.

At the end of the day, you're farmer and you've got to get those sheep back.

Right?

And I probably felt, well, yes, we made a business decision as a family, but I could have over kind of run it and I could have said, no, we are vaccinating end of.

Because I had more facts and figures than the rest of the.

The family, probably.

But you kind of always think it's never going to happen to you.

And I thought when it got close we'd have time.

What I didn't realize is, one, it blew up out of nowhere and across the whole of the county very, very fast.

And two, it doesn't show signs.

For about two weeks I've weighed the ewes at weaning and I was.

And I'd weighed them at eight weeks and I was like, blimey, those sheep have lost five kilos.

The ewes have lost five kilos.

Now I'm thinking, well, they probably already had the virus and they were already losing their like body weight inside.

And you didn't kind of realize it melts them inside.

You don't see it on the outside.

They go along and then all of a sudden they start showing actual symptoms with drooling out the mouth or really lame or whatever.

Once you get into the drooling out of the mouth, the next stage is swelling the head and then, and you're talking hours then.

If you're not treating those sheep, you're probably not going to survive them where it's difficult for other farmers around the area.

Obviously if you're grazing common land, if you're grazing farms over 20 miles or more, that is very, very difficult.

We had, we were lucky to have all our sheep within a 2 mile radius or less than that.

I just brought them really close, had all the best water facilities that I could and all the tree cover and shade and because of the heat and just to help them out a bit.

But yeah, we had a summer where it was lacking in grass.

Obviously that can help but personally, physically, mentally, a massive struggle.

I was, I, I said before, I was like, I, I felt like a duck going upstream in a heavy storm basically and I looked calm and collective on the outside, but underneath I was paddling like mad and I wasn't getting anywhere upstream at all.

And it was just, yeah, until you break basically.

And, and a neighbor stopped me on the road and said, you're right.

And yeah, I just lay out and, and to be fair that helped massively.

And you know, once that hit, I checked in on so many people to make sure they were all right because it was just like, yeah, you kind of lock things up and you just push on and get things done, don't you?

Your area, there's a lot of sheep on that.

So it's quite an intense area for sheep farming, Exmoor.

So have you found that there has been a bit of community spirit bearing in mind that's been kind of the epicenter of this year's outbreak?

Yeah, so recently there's been more events and meetings.

I've never seen so many people turn up to a sheet meeting hosted by the vets.

Just people wanted to get out I think and obviously they wanted answers.

But like yeah, there was, there was some NFT meetings, sheet meetings, but also Exmoor Hill Network put on a barbecue and yeah, it was just so well supported and get out.

Me and my friends just made an effort like it's Thursday night or whatever, let's go to the pub, have you on, you know, all in together then just speak about and just as a lot more phone calls and messaging just to make sure everyone's okay.

So I think once we all realized we were in it together, it kind of made it easier and like even going to the knackers yard like normally on a normal time that year they would take a small bulk or a week which is 28 ton is full.

So they were taking small one and they were filling that in a day and some days they were already at the second bulk of turn up in one day.

So you know, you're talking 400 to 450 sheet filling up a day.

So it's quite mental really.

And none of that has been portrayed in the media and I think that's why I feel so strongly about trying to get the message across, not necessarily the public.

I don't want, I don't want sympathy, I don't want any public sympathy or whatever.

I all I want is the farmers to realize how bad this is and can be and how detrimental it can be to your business.

And I'm not even sure how bad it's hit yet.

We've got ram testing on the 8th of October to go through to fertility test them.

What we're hearing so far around the area about 45 to 50% actually fertile in the ramps.

And regards to cows, we've seen a couple that we know aborted within four weeks of being impregnated.

What we don't know now is if those that aborted or weren't in cav will get in cav because of the bulls fertility, et cetera.

Because we haven't stopped mid flow we didn't want to stress add any more stress mid flow.

We just had to carry on.

We switch the balls around.

He's got some vaccinated balls, some.

Not everything's vaccinated now but at the time it was like hopefully we got in quick enough that we might not have had a problem.

But it's just, it's the unknown.

So we're going to see financial impact this year, next year probably with the sheep might have an okay year and then we'll be down on probably cattle.

Because everything's been so unknown.

And you mentioned earlier about actually how almost blue tongue in exmoorn around you'd had almost been a bit of a secret and farmers might not have at the start been talking about it.

Do you think that actually that's then sort of allowed some sort of misconceptions to come around it and that that might need dispelling?

Yeah, I think there's Been all sorts.

I think if.

The more I think about it, I think we probably had.

So it was in Devon last year.

We probably had some very minor cases in Devon last year and we probably saw it on our farm and it may have wintered.

We're not sure how it wintered yet.

We've, you know, we've been trying to work it out with vets and everyone else, but, you know, it exploded over Devon and Exmoor so quickly that the midges would have never moved that fast because the wind flow and everything else wasn't that strong.

I think it probably overwintered quite quietly.

We probably saw what we're seeing.

What the north are seeing now in the autumn are probably what we saw or didn't know we saw last autumn and they could be in the same very similar situation come next spring, summertime.

And so, yeah, I just.

Because it's a pain in the bum to inject every sheep of a separate needle if they can go in over the winter time or early spring before they need to change every needle when it's fully infected in the area.

It would be, you know, highly advised and get your orders in, you know, even if you're waiting because they haven't got supply, it's better to be on a list than not.

And the vaccine companies also need to know really, how many doses they're going forward for next year, otherwise they're going to be in a similar situation.

So, Rich, just bearing in mind what you've just said there, do you think you saved any cost through the way you approached blue tongue or has it actually cost you more in the long run, not spending that £12,000 to vaccinate in the first place?

Yeah, it would have been a cheaper option for this year, obviously, because it's probably nearer 20,000 now and that's without time now we know more about it.

Yeah, if I could turn back time, I would have definitely vaccinated last summer and then earlier in this year, so it wouldn't have cost me much more toward it.

It would have been about the same.

We'd have been.

Exactly.

We wouldn't have been any worse off.

Apart from healthy sheep wouldn't have cash flow because the lambs would have done so we, financially we would have been far better off.

Yeah, thanks there, Rich.

We're going to come back to you in a little bit, have a bit more of a chat with you and if anyone wants to find out any more about the blue tongue disease and the help that AHDB can provide with giving you important information on what's going on at this moment in time?

Please check out our website and check our event pages for any forthcoming webinars and meetings.

You're listening to the Ag Show.

And now it's time for our news picks.

So, Charlotte, what have you got for us this week?

I spotted an interesting story in the grocer and it's all about how Lidl has just launched a new hybrid meat range.

So it is combining meat with pea protein.

Now, the retailer says that the products contain at least 20% more protein than their standard equivalents, with the range covering everything from beef mince in two fat percentages to meatballs to quarter pounders and Cumberland sausages.

Now, what I think's interesting is, yes, product launches happen all the time, but actually Lidl is saying that this is going to be forming part of its wider protein strategy.

But what I also think is happening here is this play on two things that consumers are quite interested in at the moment, protein being one of them, but also keeping their grocery bills under control.

So these hybrid products are being priced below that of Lidl's standard meat only product.

So example of that being the 5% fat hybrid mince.

Lidl is pricing at 4.79, whereas you compare it with an average for their mince product, it is 5.75.

And the Cumberland sausage, the hybrid version is going to be at 1.99, whereas it's £2 70 for a standard meat version.

So I think it's going to be an interesting one to see what happens with this and how consumers feel about it.

So hybrid meat is not a new thing.

We have seen other retailers launch ranges before.

It got discontinued though.

But what it will be sort of a bit of a test is how much is that price element or the branding going to come into how much uptake this has.

So certainly one to watch, I think.

And also just thinking how processed is that food?

Because that'd be interesting to look at the ingredients label, how do they make it nice and tasty for consumers?

Cause that is another thing consumers are really worried about at the moment, isn't it?

They're very wary about ultra processed foods.

Yeah.

And I think it's interesting.

So I saw some of the packaging and a lot of them and I if you go into most of the retailers, anything that's like a protein yogurt or a Protein bar.

It's very clearly labeled there.

It's 20 grams of protein or high in protein and the packaging looks quite similar to that.

So I don't know, are you going to get people that might be buying those high protein mousses or yogurts that are like, oh, that looks good because it's in theory going to be my beef mince but better or are you going to get the other side where people are going actually what, how has it suddenly got more protein in it and what are the ingredients like you say that go into that.

And what we found in a number of pieces of consumer research is that longer the ingredient list, the more likely that people are going to be put off or be thinking that it could be an ultra processed food.

So normally beef mince for example has beef in it and that is it.

Whereas you could turn around a pack and go, great, you know, it's high in protein, but Jesus, it's suddenly got 75 ingredients or what it, whatever it might be.

But I also think the other thing that actually are we going to have people that picking up this pack and thinking it is just beef in there and then may having not necessarily the experience they're expecting and actually what impact might that then have on the wider category?

Interesting.

We'll watch this space and see if it lasts.

Martin, what have you been reading about this week?

Well, yes, your producer and part time presenter this week, Hannah, is skiving.

Something that I saw from the press association kind of ties in with a bit of what Karl Pendlebury brought to the podcast a couple of weeks ago.

With this rainwater harvesting, the UK will need significantly more rain than Norma over the next seven months if all regions are to recover from drought by spring.

That's according to the Environment Agency.

Now, despite this month's rainfall, three quarters of England remain in drought restrictions are still affecting around 30 million customers.

Reservoir levels are about 20% below where they should be for this time of year, with several sites less than half full.

Officials say rivers have improved.

Groundwater reserves remain depleted though and could take months to recover.

Water company's been urged to maintain drought measures, cut leakage and secure supplies through winter.

And current forecasts suggest that some areas, particularly East Anglia and the southwest, could still be in drought by April of next year.

So yeah, it's one of those to have a think as to where your water is coming from on farm, but certainly the drought factor is not going away anytime soon from the sounds of things.

But Phil, what have you spotted in the news of late?

Well, let's lighten the mood, guys.

So although anyone out there who has a child or maybe a partner who has an obsession with tractors, I would close your ears.

Or maybe even just put the screen down on the podcast because there is a collection of more than 500 John Deere tractor toys and implements to be sold at auction.

So luckily my son's not around while I'm telling you this, but I am whispering it a little bit.

Retired building surveyor Peter Green of Saffron Walden in Essex has been collecting these models over the past 12 years.

And the 77 year old is going to be offering them up for sale to free up space in his house for more collecting.

So Peter said he's been interested in tractors since a very young age and initially started collecting tractor leaflets and pamphlets.

But over that time his collection's grown and now he's decided to sell some of it, which I kind of think in a way is a bit sad, isn't it?

He's done all this work to, to collect all of these John Deere tractors.

And if you see the image of it, it's this massive room full of beautiful plastic John Deeres and metal ones as well.

And, you know, I just think, poor chap, he's being made to get rid of him.

Why doesn't he just build an extra shed?

Wouldn't that be better?

But anyway, I need to keep my head down because if my son sees it, I will end up being forced into bidding.

And they reckon that the highest value items from the collection are estimated at £300 to £500 a piece.

So, yeah, don't want a Henry finding out about that.

I was gonna say, you can't say poor man.

Because I was gonna say, what a lad for going, you know what, I wanna buy more, so I gotta sell some.

And it frees up the money.

You can buy more, you can buy more.

But I did like your approach, Phil, of yeah, build an extra room.

That is a much better one.

Keep buying, but just build an extra room to store them.

Yeah, keep buying.

I mean, look, if these will be the sort, like, I remember I had a great uncle who used to work at the Rover factory and he gave me this like, toy car in a box.

It was meant to be like a collector's item and I just like rip it out the box, play with it, smash it up.

Probably was worth quite a lot of money.

And that is kind of my view of toys like this.

And most children would be thinking the same, get my tractor toy, smash it up, use it to Use it until it's broken.

I'm not sure that's the sort of stuff we're talking about here.

I think this is very collectible stuff that's meant to be kept in a.

In a pristine condition, in a special, probably special temperature room.

So maybe, maybe he thinks a shed isn't going to be good enough for the toys.

So who knows?

But I hope they all go to a good home and I hope they do get preserved.

Let's return to our guests this week, beef and sheep farmer Rich Stanbrey.

It's safe to say that dealing with challenges like Blue Tongue inevitably gets you thinking about resilience.

So let's zoom out a little bit and talk about the farming system that he's built and the thinking behind it.

So, Rich, talk me through.

What does Western Farm look like today?

Very green today.

You've had some rain then?

I've had some rain.

So, yeah, we're a beef and sheep farm here on the edge of Exmoor.

So about 350 ewe lambs and, yeah, about 175 cows put to bull.

We finish everything here on the farm and we run a rotational regen sort of farming system and moving stock a lot.

Finishing it all on grass, basically, and, yeah, making the farming system simpler.

So if you're making it more simple, what did it used to look like then?

Chaos.

We were lambing 750 to 900 indoors and we were calving around 110, 20 cows indoors.

We were entering everything in and we were really on a treadmill.

We were fertilizing, we were feeding cake.

We were just really, really busy doing that.

And then we kind of simplified it and made it really easy.

And then we thought, well, that was easy enough.

And so we kind of scaled it up then, which has got its challenges in the infrastructure that we have put in, because we're putting a lot of infrastructure in to make that possible and easier.

But that all takes time.

And rented farms, et cetera, sometimes don't have that infrastructure.

And you need that ability to.

Of time and a tenancy to invest that sort of infrastructure to make it make it easier.

But otherwise it's a lot of temporary fencing, which we do, but I can build a paramount fence nearly as quick to temporary one.

So it sounds like time gets fact a lot into the changes that you've made.

But when you're as busy as it sounds like you were on your old system, actually that can Be really difficult to find, can't it?

What was the tipping point where you went actually it's worth investing and thinking about how we could do things differently and making those changes.

I think things started to click when.

So mum was heavily involved in the farm and she was doing all the lambing and stuff inside and helping with that and just so busy.

But unfortunately she ended up getting pancreatic cancer.

All those things that she did rely on, all of a sudden we've lost a member of the team for 10.

Where she's still going like still she's still well been in nine years now, which is phenomenal because I think she was doing like three months at the time.

So.

But all those things, then you start to think, well what would you do?

And you know, and costs of everything were going up.

Artificial fertilizers and compound feed, et cetera, bag feed were creeping up.

You know, they have a place that tools in the box, I'll use them if I need them.

But I'm not reliant on them, whereas before I was reliant on them.

And when you start carrying food to animals, it's extra work, isn't it?

So that is time.

I did a few trials on a few spots and some outdoor lamb and little things and realized honestly that was pretty simple and then just kind of scaled it up so you don't have to go all guns blazing.

But once I realized that I did go all guns blazing and we just did a full system change.

There was a time there just as well when we were laming and cabin indoors.

I busted my kneecap.

Yeah, I was in hospital for a couple days and then after that I wasn't really moving very fast.

So you kind of what would happen if I'm not here?

What has happened if someone else on the team's not here, you know.

So you kind of start to think we haven't really got the time or the risk.

You know, there's a lot of risk, isn't there?

Because it's on the unknown.

And we've always done it that way.

Attitude in farming, that big word change is difficult and you've got to be forward thinking.

Like even dad said to me, dad's a forward thinking farmer.

And I said to him what we were thinking of doing because he said I've had my 30 years.

It's your 30 years.

I then said this is what we were kind of heading to.

And he said, well, if I thought that was right, I'd have done it 50 years ago.

And we always kind of laugh about it.

And then three years later we had a lady ask dad how it was and he goes, well, I wish I did it 53 years ago or something.

So it was kind of a real massive change.

Like lambing now is so simple.

We're not trying to get a 200 scanning or anything like that.

It's all.

To me, I'm just like, that's, yeah, it's lovely to have 200, 220% to talk about, I guess, but realistically, that's a lot of work.

You're trying to push a sheet beyond its means, really.

If you can get it to do everything off of 75% effort.

Basically it's the 80, 20 rule.

You get 80% your reward from 20% of your effort, but to get that last 20%, you have to kind of put 8% of your effort in.

Have your survival rates been any different from.

From going from indoor to outdoor?

That's a really interesting question, because I would have thought they would have been worse, but they're actually better.

So the first two years where we went, we switched round.

We had a lot of sheep that were bred for an indoor system.

I had to work quite hard with those, so I wasn't just going to let stuff die.

I did work a little bit harder on those to make sure those survived and realized those sheep don't seek this system and just sold them and replaced them.

But as time's gone on, we've kind of, we've got this system now that they lamb theirself, they gap and suck, They've kind of become more resilient to the system.

And at the end of the day, as she was born to be outside, you know, it was never planned to be inside.

We made them domestic animals and kind of made them in more inside.

And their natural instinct, you know, if you turn them out of the shed with a new lamb and you get a rough day, they'll walk to the worst hedge and get absolutely battered and you'll lose lambs.

Whereas when they're born out in the rough weather, the lamb's just like, well, I guess this is what it is then.

And the year kind of goes off for a few days before and she's found her little shelter spot and get brings those lambs into the world and then away they go.

So it's kind of really interesting to step back and watch it and the more you interfere, the more problems you get.

We found, like the losses in the shed, you know, we're quite high up, so we get this misly sort of weather.

So it blows in the sheds.

And as well as your sheds are Yorkshire boarded up and everything else, that heat in the spring with moisture just creates E. Coli and issues in the shed.

So without even thinking about it, you can end up with a massive problem of losing 50 to 100 lambs, say with E. Coli.

So there's no easy, easy way, obviously in farming, but this is a damn site easier and the losses are so.

And your costs are so low that it makes it more profitable.

So, Rich, after everything you've learned through both Blue Tongue as well as the different transformations that you've put on farm, what is that one piece of advice that you would love to give your younger self?

Don't be afraid to change sooner and to take more things a little bit serious and probably, you know, when it comes down to disease, obviously, you know, these could happen to you, but for the farm, yeah, make the changes, challenge the system.

Ask yourself why a lot.

If you're doing something and you, you ask yourself why you could and then ask yourself again and then ask yourself again if you ask yourself three times why and then you get the answer and then you.

You've either got to change or you've got to put up with, haven't you?

And.

And I think there's a lot of systems that are living the same farming protocol as they were 40 years ago and time has moved on.

Anyone listening or whatever is trying to keep those youngsters in the farming industry.

You've got to make it enjoyable.

You've got to make time for yourself and your family and not be just a slave to the farm and make it as profitable and resilient as possible because the government support and subsidies are going to be gone, aren't they?

So we gotta make it enjoyable, financially rewarding and just a healthy ecosystem and lifestyle to live, really.

Thanks, Rich.

And if you want to find out more about Bluetongue and the different resources that we have, I will make sure that we have links to those on our show.

Notes, Charlotte.

Phil, well done.

Another episode under our belts.

But yes, sad to have to be telling this story about Blue Tongue again.

It's one of those things that it's so important for us to be talking about, but actually I wish that we weren't having to.

Yeah, it is, it is a real shame that we're having to talk about this, but Blue Tongue is going to be around next year and I think the important bit we've got out of Rich is kind of how it's affected his mindset as a farmer.

And I'm sure there'll be many of us out there that can learn from his experience or that they completely resonate with how he's kind of been thinking through the process.

Absolutely.

And we're always after your stories.

Agshowdb.org UK if you've got something that you want to share with the, the wider farming community, please use us as your platform to share.

Whether it's uplifting stories, stories or tales of how you've coped in adversity, just do please let us know.

Yeah, it'd be nice to get some, some emails and some letters in that we could read out.

That's what I quite enjoy.

Don't know about you guys.

I think I'd also like a happy story.

Yeah, yeah, that'd be nice.

Or a nice, nice picture.

A nice picture of a sheep.

Pretty pictures and nice good news stories.

Seeing as it feels at the moment.

A little bit heavy, but until next time, Charlotte, Phil, thank you and yeah, we'll, we'll see you all soon.

See you later.

See ya.