The AG Show dives into what Gen Z really thinks about British farming. Are younger consumers switching off from agriculture, or is it simply not showing up on their radar? New AHDB research suggests trust in British farmers is still strong, but there's a gap when it comes to understanding modern farming. So what can the industry do to better connect with the next generation?

Plus, we head back to Cumbria for an update on a rainwater harvesting project across nine farms. The systems are now installed and, after one of the driest summers in recent memory, we find out how they're bedding in and what's next for the project.

And what self-respecting podcast would be complete without talk of home-made bread, damson gin, hornets and biscuits?!?

SOME USEFUL BITS (FROM AHDB & BEYOND)

Bringing British farming closer to Gen Z | AHDB

Protecting the water supply for your crops | AHDB

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

Fewer than half of British consumers trust food labels, survey finds | The Grocer

Thatchers begins earliest apple harvest in its 122-year history | Wales Online

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Charlotte, Hannah, Phil and producers Jess and Martin would love to hear what you think! Got feedback, stories or ideas for future episodes? Drop them a message at [email protected].

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So, Hannah, you're saying recently you've discovered new skills or just brushed up on existing skills, is that right?

Do you know what? Yeah. So, for context, everyone listening, I was doing a bit of spontaneous bricklaying on my bank holiday Monday.

What a fun way of spending time down a drain, basically repairing a culvert in the yard. But it's not my first time laying bricks.

So when I did my Gold Duke of Edinburgh years ago, which people berate me for banging on about, but I think it's just great everyone should go and do it, I went and did bricklaying in a canal, a dry canal in Stroud, for a week.

By me. No way.

Nice. A dry canal. So they took the water out for you.

They drained it and then we were repairing the walls. So I spent a week with strangers laying bricks and sharing memories.

And that bricklaying skill's never gone. You've always had it. Just. If there's ever, like a bricklaying issue, you're there.

I've done water troughs, all sorts of things.

Which part of the canal was it in? Because we've had a big old leak this year. It's not your part.

It wasn't that bit, honestly.

Hi, I'm Charlotte Forkes-Rees.

I'm Phil Maiden.

And I'm Hannah Clarke. And welcome to The AG Show.

On this week's show, we'll be hearing that while Gen Z has less understanding of modern farming than older generations, trust in British farmers remains relatively strong.

We get the real emotion, we get the reasons, kind of why we were able to get under the skin a little bit, but also put that to farm. So we kind of did this research where we actually played younger farmers. Reaction to the Gen Z research.

After a rather hot and dry summer, we catch up on a rainwater harvesting project. Now the kits have been installed, we've.

Got the water quality benefits, we've got reductions in mains reliance and the costs that go with it. And we've also got reduced pressures on borehole obstruction.

All we need now is a lot more rain.

They can have some that I had the other day. But a reminder, new episodes of the Ag show drop Wednesdays at midday. Available wherever you get your podcasts with.

Audio and video versions for every single show. Just subscribe to make sure you don't miss an episode you don't want to miss out.

And please get in touch with us. We want to hear from you. Comment on any of our social posts or email agshowdb.org UK how much does.

Gen Z really know about British farming and more importantly, what do they think about it?

New HDB research suggests young people aren't turning away from farming at all. They just don't see enough of it in their everyday lives. We'll unpack the findings and what they mean for farmers in a moment.

But first, here's what a handful of Gen zers have told us.

Positive and sympathetic view of British farming. It's not easy. The weather we have here in this country makes it extremely tough to be a farmer.

I just think of like an old.

Guy in a tractor, like gets passed.

Down like farms that have been running for hundreds of years, like, and it's, I love that about it, you know, like that tends to get like passed down through generations and the generations, like, keep it running, like. I think that's quite special.

I do think it's positive. It is a bit indifferent just because of the fact that I'm not really familiar with the ins and outs of the farming process.

I admire any sort of British UK farmer and I see how hard, like some of them, like work, like there's no days off. I would rather things farmed here because if it's from abroad, like, I just think, oh, are there like chemicals in it? Is it like unsafe?

So I would prefer to buy like home projects.

There's maybe stricter laws here about how the animals are treated and stuff. Opposed to maybe other countries.

And it's a higher quality product because they're not just firing stuff out that just to get rid of it kind of thing, as maybe in other countries they do that, I think maybe more.

Trustworthy knowing people's experiences and then like seeing it firsthand, like when you're driving around and going past the fields, you just see and you can just take it into consideration what they actually do.

Primary schools, you take a trip to the farm, you, the inner city school kids will go to the countryside.

That's a lost art.

We need to bring that back.

We're joined by our lead Consumer Insight manager, Steve Evans. Steve, I think it's really important that we just get straight into this with that headline.

Actually, what was the biggest surprise that really came from this research for you?

I think for me it was like dispelling some of the myths that might exist so that Gen Z might not be really passionate about or know much about kind of farming, but kind of from a perspective that they could be quite cynical of farming. And I think the research showed that wasn't the case at all.

They're really passionate and really interested and I Think it showed us that we've got a really great base to communicate to Gen Z.

So it's not at all that they're going to be really critical about what we're doing, whether that's just in general practices or in agriculture as a whole. But actually what it did throw up instead is that perhaps it's more of a knowledge gap that's the issue rather than that underlying trust.

Can you explain a little bit more about what this really means?

I think for us it's probably really important to explain why we did the research because like what we saw in some of our past studies that Gen Z consumers often don't score as highly as sort of over 65s and when they're talking about how they feel about British agriculture or the trust that they place in farmers.

But I think the key thing here is that it's not that they don't trust farmers, it's just they don't really get exposure or that kind of communication with with farmers enough. So for us what we did was some qualitative research where we didn't have facts and stats that we kind of like get out of this.

We get the real emotion, we get the reasons kind of why and we were able to get under the skin a little bit and from that we were able to kind of link in Gen Z but also put that to farmers.

So we kind of did this research where we actually played younger farmers reaction to the Gen Z research and that helped us understand what why we kind of want to bridge that gap and it showed us that it wasn't that kind of criticism of farming. It's actually an inquisitive mind that they've got and they want to know and learn more.

And I think that for us tells us that we've got a great story to tell but we also have to tell it in a way that Gen Z want to listen to it as well, which was probably the biggest insight that I took from it.

And were there any areas where you know, our young farmers and our Gen zers there was any overlap between them? Were there any areas where they were quite unified really?

Yeah, well interestingly when you talk to them it was like it's difficult, you know, like as in I think sort of on both video clips when you can listen back to them.

We've put them on our article report write up as well and from a Gen Z consumer they kind of appreciated that it's difficult with the weather, sort of like changing market conditions and then you hear it from the farmers as well, that they very much kind of get to that point where they're sort of retelling the story but from that kind of first person sort of viewpoint.

And what the unique bit of this research was, we played to farmers that Gen Z reaction as well and I think they saw that synergy of oh, they do get it, but they just don't understand all the nuances of why behind the farming.

And I think that's where the gap is, is that if we can tell that nuanced story about farming through the lens of a Gen Z kind of communication or relevant ways that can communicate with Gen Z, there's quite a lot of good synergy that can come out which is, which is a great opportunity for the, for the, of the industry.

What age are these Gen zers, Steve? I'm 31. Am I past the point?

So for this research, because we didn't want to interview sort of right at the crux of under 18, we interviewed from 18 to 28 for consumers and then for young, some farmers, we actually didn't target a Gen Z farmer. We targeted the 18 to 35.

Because what we wanted to do was start to include farmers that are taking on a little bit more responsibility on farm or in charge of management decisions on farm.

We're millennials, Hannah. We're old.

I'm lucky to be a millennial. I'm on the cusp. Going to try and sound a bit more relevant now by talking about social media.

That has emerged as a key theme as part of your research, hasn't it, Steve?

Yeah, it probably wasn't one of those things that was like big shock insights of HDB find that young people use the Internet and social media. But I think getting underneath the skin of that was the kind of nuance about well, yes, they're using social media, but how are we talking to them?

And that's what we kind of went under the skin of in the research to kind of say that actually they want it to be accessible, relevant and they want it to be understandable where it's kind of like they get it like so they don't want to sort of like just have someone on a video telling them in detail of lots of farming practices. They kind of want it translated into their language but also to explain them why.

And I think that's kind of where transparently that's kind of probably where that gap is, where we're kind of like, you can't just sort of expect a Gen Z consumer to just listen to technical jargon that we would use in and out of the industry. So I think there is a role for translating that into kind of a. I sort of likened it to the key insight, which kind of thing.

You have to meet them where they are. And that isn't just on social media.

It's also mentally around sort of like where they are in sort of like the language, the attention span, the sound bites that you use. Just how you talk to that generation is different. And it's not to make something a right way or a wrong way.

It's just like tuning into a different radio frequency like you would do on stations. It's almost finding the right frequency that would actually tell them a story in the way that they want to listen to that story.

So you've got your one way of talking to your farming mates, but you need to be thinking about the fact this is a completely different audience and you've got to almost kind of take a. Take a bit of a step back and maybe simplify what it is you're explaining. So. So that someone who doesn't understand the technical jargon gets it.

Is that, is that kind of what you've found from the research?

Yes. Those elements certainly came in philosophy. I'd sort of say there were other nuances that came up.

I think observationally, there'll be farmers that will feel confident about adapting a message and going out and talking to consumers about that.

We also did experience and hear from farmers that sort of said they're a bit concerned about making sure they do it in the right way and recognizing that if on social media things go viral or things could be called out for, you know, their farms under the spotlight for what they're doing. So there's almost like a, sometimes a nervousness as well about telling that story.

So I think for those that feel really confident about tuning into that younger consumer and telling a message, fine, there's lots of guidance and sort of things that they can try online.

But for those that might be a little bit hesitant or not really sure that there are bigger campaigns and bigger initiatives from the industry that, you know, could look to do. So you take the ahdb, let's see Balance campaign.

We've done analysis of that year after year and it's always the farmer stories where we've actually sort of communicated through the lens of the farmer and we've narrated that story from the farmer and Kind of put it into the narratives that hits the target audience. That's landed really, really well.

Gen Z, you know, they are kind of coming up there. They're almost all adults now. So they are going to be that real shopper of the future.

Why is it, you know, really important that we try and get this communication and you know, build on this, you know, strong interest that they do have in farming. Why is that so important for our farm for the future?

The Gen Z generation, are those kind of future. Main. Well, they are.

A lot of them are main shoppers now but they'll be ones that are raising families and the ones that will be accounting for a large proportion of volume spend in retail. So for the sectors that we represent, talking and thinking about how they view meat or dairy products is really critical.

And I think as well if we can help tell a story to them when they're at shelf like looking at pack and thinking what is this product about and how was it produced?

If they've actually thought about and seen a little bit more narration around sort of how it was produced, often that to them links into the quality attributes.

Why would they should buy either a home produced product, a higher quality or sometimes in the current market conditions justifying why they should buy if say for instance a product has gone up in price. Affordability came through massively for all consumers at the moment. And I think it's the Gen Z is no exception to that. Affordability was crucial.

So demonstrating the quality of a product not just through the taste of putting it on the plate and on a meal, but actually the quality and the production. What's gone behind the scenes to get it to that shelf in the supermarket is really critical for that long term sustainability in food purchases.

You mentioned affordability being a really important consideration Steve, for Gen Zers, what else are you noticing in their consumption trends and has that changed at all over time?

I mean price is having a massive impact on that. We noticed that for instance they're very price sensitive.

They will look around for strong deals and they will look around but they're no exception to some of the wider sort of categories that we're seeing. I notice that it can have an impact on the level of brands they buy. Dairy sort of a good example of that.

The level of branded versus unbranded purchases varies with that generation. But also in their meat products that certainly thinking about what cuts of meat can they afford.

But I think critically it's not just like thinking about it from the price but it's also thinking about what types of meals they're consuming and eating. And I know sort of Charlotte's written about Gen Z articles from our team sort of over the past year as well and their eating habits do vary.

So I think thinking about how it fits with those kind of dish based cuisines and more sort of global ethnic kind of influences on taste and indulgence and really kind of getting under the skin there of kind of like how you appeal to that I saw, you know, when we've talked about viral trends and cottage cheese coming out a lot, it's like it's almost as if cottage cheese has suddenly been invented in the last years. And I remember having cottage cheese lumped on my plate, having a SAT like in the late 80s.

So some of these things aren't necessarily new products, they're nuances about well how can you serve that to a new generation? And if they've kind of got inspiration on new things, suddenly something becomes a viral trend.

I'm definitely on the cottage cheese trend.

In fact, just before we came on I was baking some cottage cheese bread because there's a someone I follow that does like really quick cottage cheese bread recipes. It's literally flour cottage cheese and then flavorings and stu. Maybe I am Gen Z because it's working.

I was going to say are you sure you're not Gen Z Hannah.

Health fads.

Exactly. Yeah. So coy cheese is a great example then if I didn't spot it on the back burner behind you.

But yeah, the fact that you're actually doing it like and I think that's just a practical example, isn't it of like how viral trends can actually then influence. And I think the ripple effect is really key.

It's really interesting you get me started on all these types of things is that you could start with a, you could start with a ripple effect on Gen Z consumers and take cottage cheese example that actually influences all the other generations around it as well. And actually it might not have the same seismic effect at the, at the epicenter site thing, but it has a ripple effect.

So I think sort of we do evolve our eating habits but it's kind of slow over the years and stuff.

So I think looking at Gen Z trends and looking at what's coming through the generations is is really critical for that long term longevity in our product categories.

Steve, thank you so much for your time and taking us through the land of communicating with gen zers. I think we've all lear. There's more about this research on the website. All the articles in full, you can go and read at your leisure.

You're listening to The AG show, don't forget, if you want to get in touch, [email protected] is the email address you need. Right, cast your minds back, if you can, to March of this year.

You may remember that we told you about a project running across nine farms in Cumbria and that's helping farmers to kit out their buildings to collect, collect and reuse rainwater.

Well, the good news is that the kits have been installed, although it's fair to say that they've probably not been put into action as much as they might have been given the summer that we've had. We're going to talk more about the project a little later in the show, but for now here's a bit of a recap.

My name's Tasha Pearson and I work for the West Cumbria Rivers Trust and I work specifically in the Waver Wample Catchment on a catchment project called the Waver Wample Farming Futures.

So the specific aim of this project is to find those real benefits for farmers and environmental conservation and find that real sweet spot in the middle.

It's really to support farmers to adapt these real sustainable practices that will help their farm business in the future, but also have those environmental benefits. So the project is funded by rap, so that is a non governmental organisation that works internationally.

It stands for the Waste and Resources Action Program and they have a specific fund that's been available to us last year called the Nature Based Solutions Fund. And we got a substantial amount of money to be able to deliver this particular project on rainwater harvesting.

So the rainwater harvesting project itself aligns brilliantly with our Farming Futures project and it's got those real benefits for, for farmers and for the environment around the farms themselves. So we've got the water quality benefits, we've got reductions in mains reliance and the costs that go with it.

And we've also got reduced pressures on borehole abstraction.

Rainwater harvesting is just absolutely kind of a win win all round because you've got those fantastic benefits that have been really well documented on the benefits to crops and the improved productivity and growth of crops and also the benefits to livestock through water consumption.

So this has been a really straightforward project, it's been really fantastically easy to deliver, but like any project, there are hitches now and again and unfortunately, our contractor did sustain a little bit of an injury early on in the year, so we were forced to delay the delivery for a few months. But all the rainwater harvesting systems are now in and they're ready to go and all we need now is a little bit of water.

Indeed we do. And we'll hear more from Tasha, the contractor, and one of the farmers involved a little later. But now it's time for our news picks.

Charlotte, what have you got?

I have been having a little bit of a read through the grocer and one article that caught my attention was all about food labels and actually it was showing that less than half of British consumers trust the information displayed on that label. And this is according to new research by the Soil Association.

They conducted a survey and it found that actually many shoppers feel really quite overwhelmed when looking at the number of claims and certification marks on packs. And while concerns about things such as pesticides and other chemicals remains quite high.

Now, this is quite similar to some of the research which we conduct.

So part of my day role is we are looking at what consumers are thinking and feeling and we do ask about these different claims and marks that you can be seeing on packaging and. And it's quite true in the research which we're seeing too.

So you might see that people can recognise that these marks are there, they don't actually understand what they mean very well and sometimes you can just have a little bit too much information on pack.

So what this research, in conjunction, I guess, with a little bit of what we're seeing, is that it is important to try and keep messages clear, simple, as few as possible, while still getting that overall message home. And reassurance is going to be really important for making sure that shoppers and consumers are really trusted, the food that they're buying.

But it's not an easy task. Hannah, what have you been reading about?

So, this isn't a sector we cover, but I thought it was quite interesting regarding how the climate's changing and affecting all kinds of food production in the uk. For those of us that like a tipple down the pub, this one affects cider production.

So Thatchers have reported that their apple harvest has started earlier than ever before. In fact, it's the earliest harvest since records began. They set a previous record last year and they've beaten that again.

I think that's quite telling considering the Thatcher family's, you know, been in the Game for about three generations, I think. So they're really seeing their production being affected by the weather and the apple growing season changing and shifting almost as well.

So historical records show that harvesting once stretched all the way up towards Christmas, but this year, and I think the year before, it's sort of wrapping up in November. It's also affecting the, you know, yields of the. Of the apples as well. So apples are smaller than usual, but the flavor's still there, I understand.

So they're still quite sweet. So. Yeah, I thought that was quite interesting.

And we've got some apple trees in the garden, actually, so I can say firsthand that we've already taken some crops off and I've made them into a crumble, so. So, yeah, more apples around a bit sooner, I think.

Yeah, I think it's a lot of fruit, isn't it? Just giving up the ghost, really. My garden, I've got damsons and apples that have just dropped off very early this year.

I mean, you look at my garden, you can barely see any lawn. All you can see is just apples everywhere. So I am literally taking a wheelbarrow load of apples off the lawn every week at the moment.

I'm sure there's lots of other people thinking the same and cursing the fact they've got fruit trees in their garden this year, which is a bit of a shame, isn't it?

How'd you get rid of the bugs? Because my mum and dad, they've got a couple of apple trees in their back garden, but they're riddled with bugs. I mean, it doesn't deter my dad.

He just. Just gets a very sharp knife to it, cuts them out and then eats the rest of the apple.

I'll tell you what, we don't have the problem with bugs in our apples, but we have got a problem with hornets. We have got a nasty hornet's nest outside our house and that is causing some chaos at the moment.

So, yeah, having to dispatch of a few hornets now and again.

Hornets will like knock on your door to. To get in. They'll literally like headbutt the window, like, let me in. They're awful.

Last night, last night I'm watching tv, it's probably about half past and it was like, I don't particularly get that scared of it, but you could have described it as being a bit of a horror movie scenario where you can just hear them going tap, tap, tap.

They're awful.

I'm glad I wasn't watching Blair Witch Project.

Gen Z wouldn't get that. I Don't think. Would they? That's very much more a millennial film.

That's a millennial school curriculum thing, isn't it?

Yeah.

Blair Witch. I never watched it.

All this talk of apples previously is getting me a little bit hungry. Hannah, I think you're the only one of us that has got some food that they can nibble up well.

And on the topic of homegrown produce, there really is nothing like a homegrown tomato. So what I've done is incorporate that. And we're on trend here because this is also cottage cheese bread.

Yeah. You were just telling Steve about that. Looks very nice.

It's looking rustic and I say that in a complimentary way.

It's not supposed to look even.

It looks a bit rustic, mate. Yeah, I see how it is. Yeah. So I'm just staring at it when I eat it, but it's a bit. I was gonna say bdsm. That's the wrong word. Asmr.

If I eat that on camera, innit? Maybe I won't do that.

That's the After Dark AG Show.

I'm a millennial, which means that I haven't heard of cottage cheese bread. So can you just describe to me how that compares to another type of bread? What's special about cottage cheese bread?

Bread?

Well, I don't know what to tell you with them. That it contains cottage cheese.

Does it taste like bread or cheese or something else?

It's cottage cheese flour, self raising flour. It works with Greek yogurt as well. So a really good recipe, super easy, is equal parts Greek yogurt and flour.

Mash it together, put some seasoning in, it makes really nice flatbreads and they're high protein, good for you. But I've seen a cottage cheese recipe and there's someone I follow on Instagram because I'm a millennial.

I don't have TikTok because I would literally get nothing done in my life if I had TikTok. Yeah, it's just cottage cheese and self raising flour and then whatever flavorings you want. So I've gone for some homegrown tomatoes.

I've actually come from Jess, producer Jess's mom's garden Pailton tomatoes.

I had some of those tomatoes in an omelet containing home cooked eggs the other day and they were delicious. Yeah. And.

And although I haven't made some bread, I have got something else home produced that I was working on last night, which you'll be very excited about, which is some damson gin.

Oh, nice. That's one of my favourites, damson gin.

What are you making for us, Charlotte? We've got the damson gin, we've got the cottage cheese bread.

I have very handily got these. Of course home produced. Other brands are available but McVitty's digestive Jaffa cakes flavour. So that's my contribution to this home cooked.

Why would you ruin a digestive biscuit by making it Jaffa Cake flavor?

Yeah, I don't know, I don't even like them either. So it's a husband special, that one.

You're halfway through the packet.

Yeah, I hate them, I hate them.

Still moreish.

It's just a stress of being on this podcast.

Let's have another one to be sure.

I don't like it.

Did you just see me popping off in one go?

Right, that should be enough for part two.

Let's get more now on the rainwater harvesting project that's underway up in Cumbria.

Our beef and lamb engagement manager for the northwest, Karl Pendlebury, is involved and over the summer went to one of the nine farms that's had the kit installed where he caught up with dairy farmer John Bailey.

We're back here again, John, on what can only be described as the hottest day of the year in Cumbria. Yeah, I know. You know what I. We're almost 10 o' clock and we're probably touching 25, 26 degrees.

That in Cumbria is like being in the Bahamas, my friends. Yeah. I think what we've got now is two whacking great water troughs in the tanks. Tanks installed. How much water capacity have you got in these?

These are in, in theory 22, 000. They're slightly over, but 22, 000 liters each. So. So like there's 10,000 gallon of storage here.

Okay. And when they're full, if you went off mains completely, what would they provide for you?

It's actually only a few days, to be honest, with a milk cows.

Yeah, yeah, I thought it might. In fact. You said a few days, I thought you might have said two days.

But it's not much. But the way that we're doing it is there's troughs at both ends of this building.

Part of why we've done it is to take pressure off the borehole to allow it to fill the trough faster. So that end of the building will still be on borehole, this end of the building will be on these. Okay. So.

So that will make it last a bit longer because it's not 100 but. But it does mean we'll have a Better floor, more, more water for the cows because we've got two systems feeding.

Them and all that then just balances out and you've not quite got as much reliance on anything else because it's a natural resource that we have plenty of incumbria.

Yeah.

This year but normally plenty of incumbria and this one roof behind us all really so.

Oh yeah, yeah. At the moment we've just got, I mean there's, it's double pitch on this roof and we've just got this side of this roof feeding these two tanks.

Going forwards there is scope to, you know, put some more tanks down this side.

And there is enough. We've checked, you know, we've made sure the way we've sighted that there is enough for that.

We could actually bring the water from the valley gutter to, to them as well. So we could take three quarters of the water off this building. The far side wouldn't work as easily that but.

But at the moment we're just taking one quarter and that seems that's in theory quite well balanced for the amount of tanks we've got.

Yeah.

But there'd be nothing to stop us putting another three, four tanks on this side and having three quarters of the roof coming into it.

That's dairy farmer John Bailey from Morehouse Hall Farm up in Wigan. Carl also caught up with Michael Jordan whilst he was there.

No, not Michael Jordan the basketball player, but Michael Jordan pretty damn fine contractor whose job it's been to install the kits. And he told Karl what it involved.

We speak to the farmer, whether that's them contacting us directly or meeting us at a show or anything like that. So that's the initial contact. The first thing we're asking is what do you want to use the water for.

So there's obviously many uses that the water can be used for.

The simplest way of explaining it is anything that is agricultural based, whether it's wash down livestock, drinking, cleaning of vehicles, spraying, irrigation, anything like that, anything that that water is needed for on the farm. Rainwater can be put into that. The next thing is having a conversation with them about what roofs they've got, what buildings they got.

Because ultimately we need to determine which building is going to be the best for them.

The system's always got to be working for the farm, not just chucked in and go, there's a load of water there, you can use it.

As I always say, it's got to be in a place that the farm is going to use it and it's got to be in the right place that it can be either taken directly from the tanks or pumped out to troughs and things like that. When we get to the farm, we have a look at.

We need to know the building roof size and then from there we do a yield calculation, as we call it, where we work out how much average rainfall they're going to get in a year and how much water they're going to be able to collect into tanks. And then a conversation goes from there about how much storage they need. Everything is geared to that farm and that farmer's need.

Sometimes the biggest roof is the best because it's going to collect the most, but that isn't always the best place to put it. So sometimes smaller roofs might be more beneficial to them, to have a smaller system giving them water closer to where they need it.

There's lots of little things that we have to go through with the farm and then obviously we put a design together and a cost.

And then when they say yes, we come and install all the systems and set them up and get them running for them, Explain to them how to clean the filters. The only thing they have to do in terms of maintenance is clean the filters. And the filters are stainless steel.

So you just pressure wash them and give them a clean and put them back in. There's no ongoing cost or anything like that. And that is the only thing the farmer has to do to get that water clean.

And what would be, in your estimation, sort of the biggest challenge to overcome, from a farmer perspective, to having a rainwater harvesting kit installed?

A lot of the time it's where the system can be located. Some farms are super simple. Some farms have a lot more different elevations and building heights and things like this.

So sometimes getting the water to where you need it can be quite awkward.

Would you say this area benefits more than the drier areas of the country, or do you think the drier areas of the country are actually. This is an absolute essential for that particular mindset.

I will be completely honest.

We've been doing this 15 years and probably in the last three to four years we've actually been coming over to your sort of west coast, or northwest, I should say usually sort of Manchester, up into Cumbria and everything like that, into Scotland. Years ago, this side of the country used to say, we have plenty of rain, we don't need to collect it.

Now suddenly everyone's mindset is just completely flipped. Most of our systems were at one point over where we are, which is Lincolnshire.

So it was all your Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire, Yorkshire, Kent, which is dry but massively arable. So they're looking at it in a slightly different way. Away with mass storage and storing it for when they need it.

I think what's changed from what I can think is a lot of water companies, their prices are going up, people are looking to expand stock levels and things like this. And you can work out your feed, I can put a new shed up to hold them, all these things. But then suddenly there's this bill of water that comes in.

And I hate to say it, a lot of people don't always know what they're paying. And it usually shocks them when they actually go away and work out how much they're paying on water.

And then we can say to them, well, look, you know, ideally the ultimate game for everyone is to make them water neutral, as we say. So they don't use mains at all. Livestocks are completely. It's slightly different to the arable side because obviously they're looking.

The demand is constant.

Yes, but as we say to people, if we, if we can knock off a certain, you know, half, three quarters of your bill, suddenly that's more money in your pocket that you don't have to spend out, which helps you.

And then going back to this system, you know, he's saying it's a few days of storage, but the beauty is he's got scope that the other side of the shed, we can bring that side in as well. So you've got another. You've got another valley.

So you've got two times the size of this to come in as well, which he's probably going to do in the future. And then where we stood now, these two tanks, we can add more tanks in so you can modular build the system.

So suddenly you could have two days of water and we could bring the other side in, which gives him a faster fill, and then put more tanks and you could end up with two, three, four weeks of storage. And it suddenly changes the whole ball game of how farmers interpret the water.

And it always is that mindset of there's always that storage and use and they've got to try and equal up. And the worst thing is having too much storage. And then you've just spent a lot of money on tanks for no reason.

But then the other side is you could have a high use and low storage. So it's finding that balance. And the beauty with the systems is because they're modular and you can add. It's easy to add than take away.

That's the contractor, Michael Jordan. So what is next for the project now that the kits have been installed? Here's the coordinator, Tasha Pearson again.

We have now got a three year monitoring programme kick started.

We were working with the farmers themselves to collect various bits of information for the funders and just to kind of get those tangible benefits really on paper so we can show how beneficial rainwater harvesting really is. So we'll be looking at things like the total usage, total water captured.

We'll be looking at at surface water runoff in yards, just to see if there's any changes in water quality immediately on farm. We'll be looking at what the farmers are actually really using the water for and how it's benefiting their farm.

And we'll also be looking at reductions in the pressure of borehole abstraction and reductions on mains reliance and looking at the cost benefits of that as well. So that's over a three year period. So we've got still a little bit of work to do to make sure we can collect all that data on the project.

But as a whole it's been a fantastic experience and a real pleasure to be a part of.

So, guys, another great episode there. Talking about Gen Z and farmers. Not a Gen Z' er amongst us, is it? All three of you are millennials and you identify.

Yeah, we are.

What are you, Martin?

Gen Xer?

He left that right to the end of the episode. Have you just noticed that he get very quiet while we were chatting?

That's above us, right?

Yes, yes, yes. I'm just below baby boomers, I think so, yeah. That's how far back my generation goes.

At least you're not the silent generation. That's a long time ago.

But anyway, listeners don't stay silent. Do email us a showhdb.org uk if you want to tell us about something that you want to hear on the show or just give us some plain old feedback.

We'd love to hear from you. Right, so Hannah, you're off to eat more of your cottage cheese bread with tomato on the side. Charlotte, you're off to your biscuit tree.

And Phil, what are you going to be doing? You got to get the wheelbarrow out again.

Yeah, I'm going to get a wheelbarrow load of apples that need to be got rid of because they're rotting. But I'm going to make some apple sauce as well. Let's not let and go to waste.