This week on The AG Show, farmer Jim Chapman joins the team to share his powerful story of losing an arm in a PTO shaft accident, and how that life-changing moment continues to shape his day-to-day life. With agriculture still one of the UK's most dangerous industries, we're proudly backing Farm Safety Week and helping shine a light on the risks farmers face every day.

We'll also be hearing from a former farmer turned firefighter about the real fire risks that come with the recent spell of hot, dry weather, and what farmers can do to stay safe during harvest and beyond.

Plus, we take a look at Open Your Gate, a joint campaign from AHDB and LEAF that's encouraging farmers to welcome more young people onto farms, with an ambitious goal of delivering one million on-farm experiences by 2031.

It's a packed episode full of honest conversations, practical advice and plenty of reasons to get involved.

SOME USEFUL BITS (FROM AHDB & BEYOND)

The Impact – safety in numbers - YellowWellies.org

Support for farmers | AHDB

Dry weather and drought – fire prevention | AHDB

How have the recent heatwaves impacted GB milk production? | AHDB

RABDF launches dairy entrepreneurs club | AHDB

AHDB and LEAF launch drive to inspire the next generation through on-farm experiences | AHDB

Home Page | LEAF (Linking Environment And Farming)

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Welcome back, Hannah. Fresh from your honeymoon. How was it?

Yeah, it was incredible. Yeah, it was a tough, tough return. No, I'm joking. I'm really happy to be back.

Being on the ag show is always going to soften the blow, right?

Oh, yeah, definitely.

What did you get up to? Obviously, the clean version of events, please.

We did lots of driving around. We did lots of hiking. We went to Yellowstone, which was incredible. I'd recomm. Anyone go to Yellowstone National Park. Oh, my goodness.

Grizzly bears, anyone? I did ride a horse for the first time ever for a whole day.

New sideline for you, going and checking your own cows on horseback.

Yeah. I said to Andy, like, right, we need to get a couple of horses now. I mean, his cattle are all indoors, but, you know, trotting them around the barn.

Yeah. One end to the other.

Where's the cowboy hat?

I can get it for you if you like.

I should have opened the show with it on.

Yeah, you are.

Hang on a minute.

This is when we need to get some wild west music going, as she's walking away and then coming back in. I like it.

There's mine.

Very cool.

Charlotte. We've got to decide now, is Hannah good, bad, or the other one?

Well, let's move on with the show.

Hey, y'.

All. No, I can't do that. Hello, everyone. I'm Hannah Clarke.

I'm Charlotte Forkes-Rees, and welcome to The AG Show.

Now, in this episode, we'll be talking about the serious topic of farm safety. Hearing from someone who lost their arm in a horrific accident, had a roll.

Pin sticking out about half an inch, and that caught hold of my jumper, wound me in my arm, went round the shaft, I went over the top. The world went fuzzy for a second, and I, you know, sort of landed on the floor minus my left arm.

Given the dry and hot conditions, we've got some pointers for preventing and managing fires on farm.

The biggest thing we find is farmers. They're. They're in their own element that they've created.

There isn't probably the safety structure that they're sort of carrying out because it's their home.

We've also got details of an ambitious campaign to deliver a million farm visits.

A reminder, new episodes of the Ag show drop every Wednesday at midday. Available wherever you get your podcasts.

And we've got audio and video versions available for every show. Just subscribe to make sure you don't miss an episode to get in touch too.

We'd love to hear from you and comment on any of our socials or email ajshayhdb.org UK we wanted to start this episode with a nod to Farm Safety Week and our first guest turned a life changing experience into a mission to improve farm safety across the industry. Jim Chapman was 23 when he lost his left arm in a PTO shaft accident.

In the two decades that have followed since, Jim's had to adapt and rebuild his life and make it his mission to challenge dangerous habits on farm. Jim, welcome to the Ag Show. Thank you very much for joining us.

And I should also say, as we are kind of neighbouring farmers, thank you also for helping out while we've been away in the States. It wasn't too much work.

No, you're very welcome. Thanks for having me. No, it wasn't too much work. You know, if a man can, with one hand can do it, then it, it wasn't too stressful, was it?

We owe you one. But we're here to talk about farm safety and Jim, that's obviously a huge topic that's really close to your heart.

I wonder if you could just take us back on the journey and sort of take us back to the start and what you remember about your accident.

What I remember and what actually happened.

Maybe two different things, I don't know because I've been telling the same story for sort of for 21 years now and it's the same story, it hasn't changed, but I'm not entirely sure, you know, I've had a lot of drugs, not illegal drugs, but the ones that the doctors gave me to, to help me with, with, you know, my good lookingness. It was a cold, a cold, cold Friday morning and asked. A friend of mine had asked me to go and give him a hand.

If I knew he wanted the old arm, I probably would have stopped at home. And it was one of those mornings where, you know, nothing's going to plan.

And the machine that he wanted me to use wouldn't start and the other machine, there was a problem with that. And so cut a long story short, you know, under a bit of pressure, he had got a meeting to go to.

Just go and grab the tractor and slurry tanker from up the farm, empty some underground tanks. Yeah, no problem at all. You know, the tanker wasn't in the best state of repair.

But at 23 years old, working for a friend, you just sort of get on with it, don't you? You know, you, you put it to one side and, and go and get on and, and that's what I did.

I set it all running and pipes in the ground, trying to suck water out and. And I've gone back around to the pump, nothing seems to be happening.

Basically I've gone back around to the pump with the tractor still running and I've put my hand under the exhaust of the pump to see if it's sucking or blowing. And just as I'm sort of pulling away, my jumper got caught in the PTO shaft.

It was like partially guarded and just the last little bit had a roll pin sticking out about half an inch and that caught hold of my jumper, wound me in. I knew exactly what was happening and sort of, you put your hands out to stop you going any further, there's nothing to hold on to.

So my arm went around the shaft, I went over the top, came in contact with the drawbar, the world went fuzzy for a second and I landed on the floor minus my left arm, jumper, shirt. The only thing I had was like the sleeve on my right arm and I knew straight away that it had gone.

I sort of grabbed what was left, closed my eyes and screamed and luckily I was working with a couple of guys and they rang the ambulance and eventually an air ambulance. It wasn't eventually at all, it was quite quick.

Ambulance came, came down and scooped me up, whisked me off to Birmingham and, and I had seven wonderful days in hospital where they patched me up, stitched me back together as best they can and, and sort of chuck me out. And that was. That was the start of, I suppose then trying to live one handed, which probably sounds harder than it is.

And then after, you know, I had a bit of a problem with girlfriend that I was with at the time, not her fault at all that broke up, had a bit of a depression, you know, and I felt, you know, a bit, a bit low and just wondered whether it was worth carrying on. But luckily I'm slightly fat and lazy and didn't want to do anything about it.

And then my friends took me down the pub, cheered me up, realized life was good and worth sticking around for.

And then young farmers sort of came around and I got involved with Warwickshire and then West Midlands and then national and, you know, and that sort of the doors that, that opened for me and led me to places and it eventually led me to helping HSE out with their make the Promise campaign where they, you know, sent out a load of little knots and stuff. But it's a bit old school. And then from then on I sort of, you know, couldn't. I struggled to say no to things as you realize that's why I'm here.

You know, when people wanted me to like talk about what had happened to me and how easy it is to happen and, and tell that, that same story, but, you know, probably in a bit more detail then I'm, you know, I'm happy to go and do it and, and that led to me then sort of getting involved in farm safety, which was never my plan really, but here we are and that's sort of like a whistle stop tour of how I got to be so devilishly good looking and slightly lopsided.

Well, I think the, the industry of farm safety is all the better for having you, Jim. Albeit your entry to the sector was under bad circumstances.

Just going back, you know, that job you were doing at the time, you didn't really think about it. It was sort of like an everyday job. And I guess it's often those kind of jobs that catch people out more.

So than a, you know, something that comes out of the blue that, you know, that you don't ever do very often. You probably think about it more often.

Yeah, you could walk past something dangerous every day of your life, but because you've walked past it every single day, it's become the norm and it's, and it's accepted and, and you sort of know it's dodgy, but it's okay. And you know, but it's when just that one little thing happens.

So I knew that PTO shaft, it wasn't the best I hooked it on and I knew that you shouldn't use a PTO shaft that's not fully guarded. But I thought, well, that's okay, I'll know not to go near it.

But it was when that pressure then came on unexpectedly where the guys I was with said they weren't sure it was working properly. You know, I was the young pup, if you like. And are you sure you've got it set right?

Because let's face it, there was no stickers on there to tell you which way the pair of mole grips needed to be pointed, whether it would be sucking or blowing. So all those things then led from what was quite a normal. You know, I've used tankers and I'd use tractors and all that, you know, is quite normal.

But then that split second of something thrown into the mix that wasn't normally there then led me to, you know, do something that ended up in, you know, a split second of madness and, and pain.

Yeah, I went and opened your nuffield report, which is on this very subject. And the first line in your intro is my prosthetic arm cost over £21,000 and the piece of plastic that would have saved it cost £100.

Yeah.

And the thing that gets me, and I know, you know, in farming finances we're under such pressure and so you'd rather spend £100 feeding your cattle or, or buying a bit of chemical what? You know, there's 101 things that you could spend money on. The last thing that we spend money on as a farmer is ourselves.

Whether that be a PTO guard, whether that be a day off, whether that be, you know, something nice. And we're always the last piece in the jigsaw to get to the. We, you know, we put first.

But yes, so that PTO guard, yeah, 100 quid would have saved an arm. But equally, I understand why people don't want to spend 100 quid on a bit of plastic.

And it's only when you've, you've had that sort of epiphany that that is relatively cheap. It's really, it's really tricky and I'm, and I wouldn't judge anybody, I'm not, you know, not going to judge anybody for making different decisions.

But yeah, it was just a quite an easy bit of maths in the long run.

Plus the fact that, you know, I can't tie shoelaces and things like, you know, forget the prosthetic arm bit but you know, just life's harder one handed.

What would you say would be kind of the hardest part of your adaptation and recovery since your accident?

Anything with an and in it. Hammer and nails, toothbrush and toothpaste.

So I have to make choices like driving down the road. I have to make choices whether I wave to people that I know on the road or don't crash into them.

So the hardest thing actually is, is looking at myself. I don't like looking in a mirror. I don't like pictures of me because that's not me in my head I am normal. I have two arms.

It still feels like I've got two arms and, you know, and I can just carry on and everything's normal. When I see things, you know, see images of me, that's the hardest things. That's not me. That's some, that's a one armed bloke who looks really weird.

No wonder kids look at me strange when I go to school, you know, and drop the kids off and things like that. So years ago that was never a big problem. I was, I sort of brushed that under the carpet.

But just as I get a bit older and realize, yeah, actually that is a bit of a thing I guess.

You mentioned, you know, you still think, feel like you've got two arms. How have you adapted your life on farm?

Yeah, so I'm very lucky. I work for a lovely lady who has lots of patience and knows when to walk away when they're swearing and things like that going on in the workshop.

But yeah, like little things like self propelled sprayer.

I've had to create a foot pedal on the floor so that I can do the forwards and backwards motion, if you like, with my foot and then use my hand to do the steering. Like I say, I have to make choices and when it comes to going down the road, you can't choose whether you steer or not. You have to do that.

But I've got other features, you know, the limbs that work absolutely fine. I'm very lucky that I've still got my right arm.

Not only because it's my dominant arm and you know, I don't have to learn to write my name again, but because most modern machinery is set up, most tractors, combines, everything is all set up with everything on the right hand side. I'm very lucky in that respect and I know that.

I know people not far from here that have, have lost the right arm and it's so much harder, so much harder to, to get by in, in farming. So yeah, I'm very, I am lucky in many, many ways. Carrying beards. I can't carry more than one beer. Sorry. And yet every time.

That's unfortunate, Jim.

Well, yeah, but people still say, oh, you know, or whether it's just me, I always the one that offers to go to the bar and then have to do several journeys to bring the drinks back and I, I don't understand how I've got so fat. The amount of walking that I have to do when I go to the bar.

You need a trolley.

A trolley.

I need a trolley everywhere I go. Hang on a minute. I'll just fetch out my little, my little trolley following me around just in case I go to the bar.

I know, I know, I know I need lots of things, but that's on the list.

We'll talk to Jim a little bit later on in the show. More details of the Farm Safety Foundation's Farm Safety Week campaign can be [email protected] we'll put a link to it in our show notes.

Now we're going to start our news picks a little differently this week as we want to Carry on the theme of farm safety. Now, given the heat waves and dry conditions we've been experiencing, there's a greater risk of fires breaking out.

Only last week we were hearing about a couple of young farm workers who ploughed a fire break to prevent flames spreading across a field towards homes near York.

Chris Alfer is an ex farmer and now watch manager with the Warwickshire Fire and Rescue Service. He's been giving the Ag show some pointers for preventing and managing fires on farms.

The biggest thing is not necessarily overlooking the risks.

It's that, as we already know, like the farming environment is actually probably one of the most dangerous ones, not because of the hazards involved, but it's because they are actually like people's homes. And the biggest thing we find is like, there isn't the health and safety.

Like, when I go into my workplace, the fire service has a number of, like, rules we have to follow, procedures, PPE and stuff like that. And I think the biggest thing we find is farmers, they're in their own element that they've created.

There isn't probably the safety structures that they're sort of carrying out because it's their home. Even if it is a field at the back where they're growing oats, they still see it as their home.

And sometimes it may be a bit of a lax in how they're treating because it is a sort of like a workplace. But it's also equipment maintenance. You know, our vehicles, everything are tested regularly, daily checks, everything like that.

Whereas, you know, farmers may have 1, 2, 3 tractors that are doing an awful lot of work and are they having the maintenance that they need? You know, prime example is hedge cutting. Are they clearing out all the brash and everything that's been caught in around the engine?

My dad, coming to ours with his tractor, actually had a small fire in his engine compartment from his hedge cuttings and all it required was him to pull over and flick it out with a pen knife. Now, if he had done that an hour before, it had saved him the hassle.

So I think that's sort of one of the biggest things is the, the risk is it's not seen as a workplace.

And when it comes to fires and dealing with them on farm, the advice now is to call 999 immediately rather than tackle it alone. What mistakes do you still see that are sometimes being made during those first few minutes?

Incorrect addresses or not accurate enough addresses. So, like on our appliances we have what we call a mobile data terminal. So it's basically a laptop that can pinpoint the address.

So when the call comes through to control, they can actually put it through onto the appliance. So whilst we're driving to the incident, I can actually look and see us getting closer to the incident. Second thing is access and egress.

So it's brilliant that farmers will also start thinking, let's get a set of discs on the back of a tractor, let's try and start creating our own fire break. But in turn they might then start blocking gateways and driveways with four by fours because everyone's turning up to help them.

And then we can't get in close enough with our hose reels, you know, our water appliances and such forth.

How regularly are you dealing with fires that are taking place on farms in.

These sort of conditions? It seems to be quite often, especially with the spate conditions. And I wouldn't say it's down to so negligence on the farmers part.

I'd say it's purely down to the conditions that we've got at the moment. We seem to be having longer, drier summers now. We don't seem to have sort of the rain leading up through sort of like the spring either.

So the ground really is dry. By the time we're coming into sort of like June, the ground already seems pretty baked and pretty solid.

As for us, like, the issue is they're always like protracted incidents.

They're always, they're not a quick job and knock, you know, we know we're going to potentially be there for hours and the next shift will be picking it up and such forth. And we also, we're mindful that we don't want to just leave a great big mess for farmers to deal with.

So if it is, you know, a large stack of bales or such forth, we don't just want to try and drench it just so we can clear off, we might try and do a controlled burn of it so then the farmer isn't left with such a massive like waste to deal with. So that's probably the, the big thing. It might not be too frequent, but when they happen, they're never a quick job knock.

It's, you know, we've got to start planning our resources ahead. Relief crews, re inspections. It's sort of like when one of those jobs happen, we know we're going to be there. It's not going to be a quick one.

Firefighter Chris all fur speaking to Phil Maiden. And there's some more fire prevention advice on the HDB website.

I've been doing some reading this week and sticking on this hot weather theme that is very much going through the last few episodes that we've had, we've recently released a piece of analysis published by our very own Susie Stannard, who's the lead dairy analyst at hdb. And it's looking at how the recent heat waves have affected GB milk production.

Now, according to Suzy, the series of record breaking hot spells this summer has taken a noticeable toll on milk production, with an estimated 18 and a half million litres of milk being lost so far.

Heat stress is the real cause and it reduces feed intake and milk yields, with cows starting to feel effects at temperatures much lower than many people are actually going to realize. And as a result, we have seen the market shift from being in a position of milk oversupply to short term under supply.

And that tightening in availability has helped push spot milk prices up by around 10 pence per litre.

So Susie has also highlighted that the effects of heat stress are often cumulative, which means we could see continued pressure on milk supplies and further market volatility in the months ahead.

So with these extreme weather conditions becoming much more common, the dairy sector is increasingly having to think about how to keep their cows cool, comfortable and productive during future heat waves.

So if you are looking for practical advice, HDB has a range of resources available on its website covering ways that you can be reducing heat stress in livestock. But equally, if you want to read the full article from Suzy, it's available on our website.

But going back to the news and a new campaign has been launched today to deliver a million farm visits for children and young people over the next five years.

Open youn Gate is a partnership between HDB and Leaf that's linking environment and farming with some 80 farmers given the chance to take part in our free school farm visit support program. That includes some CVAS training, which is something Elaine Smith from Lancashire Farm Education spoke about on a recent Ag show episode.

So I put myself onto the first available CVAS course and that training was absolutely invaluable.

As a teacher, you would think I probably wouldn't learn very much about that because I know how to manage children, but actually those health and safety points, risk assessments and all those other Things that you don't really think about, making sure that the hand washing is appropriate and things like that. And just reassurance as well to know that you're doing the right things.

Because we actually, we were doing most of the right things, but we, you know, just having that reassurance. And the biggest, biggest benefit for me was networking with other farmers and other people delivering the educational visits.

So much so that we then held a CVAS kind of catch up session at the farm post, the post the course. And we've also set up our CVAS group as well that's growing and we just support each other.

So people throw in questions to the group and we support each other that way. So a long winded answer. But the CVAS course really, really just made me fine tune everything and make sure everything was right.

HDB's head of retail and Education partnerships, Ros Reynolds, has been speaking to Phil about Open youn Gate.

So Open youn Gate is a new campaign that we're launching today with our education partner leaf. And it is really built around a shared ambition which is kind of twofold.

So first of all that we really want to help create more opportunities for young people and children to have the opportunity to experience a firsthand working farm.

So really giving young people the opportunity to get out on farm and really understand about sustainable British farming and where their food comes from. And then also that we want to support farmers and give them the confidence to welcome young people and children onto their farm.

And today we're particularly talking about school farm visits.

And together with Leif, we've put together a support program for farmers that will really give them the knowledge and know how and the confidence to be able to host school farm visits. So it might be that farmer's new to hosting school farm visits or it might be that they've got some experience but want to build their confidence.

And as part of that program there'll be training and you'll have heard just then from Elaine, who's done the CVAS training.

That's really about building those connections and say giving young people that opportunity to really understand where their food comes from and for farmers to get involved in a really kind of an industry collective effort and be part of that wider ambition.

So yes, I say it's very much a collective ambition and it is an ambitious one as well. And there's various kind of pillars of activity that fall as part of that 1 million ambition.

So the school farm visit support program is one of them, but also open Farm Sunday as well. And I think it's just over 40% of those that visit an open farm Sunday are children.

So it's a great opportunity almost to do education by stealth, but also some of the direct delivery that we do with ourselves with Lee. So we hold on farm conferences and we also do other activities, for example with A level students. So some direct delivery that we're doing as well.

But yeah, as I say, very much a collective ambition.

And why do you feel now is the right time to be doing this?

So we know that there's growing evidence that actually young people really want to understand where their food comes from, but are lacking that opportunity. So there was actually some research that was led by leaf, I think it was with two and a half thousand young people that took part in that.

And actually I think it was a vast majority.

I think 95% really wanted to understand where their food comes from, but also they had was a significant number who also wanted to understand how they might enter the agri food sector. So there's a real opportunity for also being able to kind of showcase the industry and what careers there might be as part of that.

So we really think that the kind of the time is now and really, as I say, an opportunity that together we can help create those opportunities and build those connections.

You're listening to the Ag show, remember, we love to hear from you, so do get in [email protected] UK or on any of our socials. But we're back now with Jim Chapman and I've got a couple of questions.

I think that really home from some of the things that you were saying earlier on Jim, and it was around actually, you know, we all think that we're invincible. You would never have thought, you know, oh, I'm doing something I've done all the time. Anything would ever happen to me but farming.

You've got such dangerous equipment and I think we brush that off a lot, don't we?

Have you got any perspective from your experience about how we can really start maybe challenging that and seeing about, you know, how we can get people to recognize the things that they're doing.

As farmers, we're fantastic at loads of things, aren't we? You know, we are multifaceted. Well, most people are. I might not be, but, you know, a lot of your listeners will be.

But we're none of us trained safety professionals, are we? I don't think we think we're invincible, but we're very good.

I think it's human nature to be able to not worry about the minutiae of what could go wrong. Otherwise we wouldn't even get in a car and drive up the motorway. You know, how many people are killed every year, you know, driving?

And yet we still do it. So I think it is human nature that we sort of. We never assume that these things will happen to us.

They happen to other people on the news, we read about them, we see them on social media, but they don't happen to us. The difference in ag is, statistically, it's more likely to happen to us. You know, we have the highest fatality rate of any industry in the country.

It isn't an easy thing because these things happen to other people. They happen to Jim, they happen to, you know. But we all know somebody who has been killed or seriously injured on a farm, don't we?

You know, everybody listening will know somebody. It's our own responsibility to think about everything that we do. And actually, it could happen to us. It's not the lottery that it could be you.

It very much could be us. On farm.

When I was doing my nuffield, I did a bit of traveling around a few and in Australia I went to Dare, I think it was Dairy Australia, which I'm assuming is a bit like yourselves, ahdb, you know, got kind of like the marketing body, if you like, of Dairy Australia. They were doing some work on farm safety and doing more, like with kids, trying to keep kids safe on farm.

And they had a little competition where they got the kids to walk around the farm with their parents and draw pictures of anything they thought was dangerous on the farm and the amount of adults that knew it was dangerous but, you know, sort of didn't do too much about it. But because their kids had spotted it, they're like, wow, they think it's dangerous and they're a kid. And so they sort of did something about it.

So I sort of thought about this and took it a bit a stage further and we get very blind to our own surroundings. Again, that human nature thing. We don't need to bring in a safety professional, we don't need to bring HSC or anybody else.

Who might be very, very good, but might also charge money to come and have a look around the farm. Let's just start with our neighbor. Just get a fresh set of eyes to come and have a little walk around your farm and say, oh, have you spotted that?

And what about that? And just that fresh perspective on your farm can really, you know, help you spot little things.

And then the important thing is not to think, I need to be safe from now on. I need to get everything fixed. So you could have a list of a hundred things that need fixing, but that's really overwhelming.

And so going in and then trying to do it all in one go is impossible. It's just not going to happen, is it?

So if you set yourself, if you have a list on the wall so that when you've got a rainy day or a day where you haven't got an awful lot on, you can just tick, put them off. All right, so that bit needs doing this week. And if you did one a week, that's 52 things a year that you're going to fix.

So it becomes really scary. And when things are scary, you put it off. We'll do that tomorrow. But tomorrow never comes, does it? So you need to be able to just break it all down.

Nobody ever wakes up. There's another thing, another great thing that I learned from a big sheep farmer in, in Australia. He said he never.

He's never woke up one morning, gone. That's it, we're safe. It's something that you work on every day. And it was just part of his daily routine, like one thing every day. Right. What is it?

You know, and, and talking to the staff and everything, if you're lucky enough to have staff, allowing people to have a feel, comfortable enough to report things and just say, look, this is a bit dodge. Can we do something about it one day?

And is it also the other side of it where quite often you'll think, oh, that's fine, that doesn't bother me.

But if you were saying, oh, actually, yeah, you know, I'm going onto Hannah's farm and Hannah's there thinking, well, I might think that's all right for me. But, yeah, no, actually, just paying £100 to get this guard and that's gonna help protect my mate, that's a very different mindset, isn't it?

It's always easier to think about protecting someone else. So maybe that's also the view that you need to take on some of these.

Yeah, it's a great point. How many times do we do something ourselves because it's a bit dodgy.

Rather than putting the student up or we assume that dangerous responsibility for ourselves but that, you know, what's the point in that? Or you're not fixing the danger, you're just shifting the danger.

You know the argument about having kids on farms and you know, I'm not gonna get into that and I'm not a judger on that either and you know, and everybody makes their own decision but actually no parent ever wants to see their child come to harm. If you ever thought, actually I do want to let my kids on the farm and you wouldn't have made that farm safe enough for the kids.

You can guarantee it's safe enough for you to work on, wouldn't it? You know, so lots of different ways of thinking about it and actually probably one of the best ones. And this, you're both probably quite like this.

I have a strong suspicion that agriculture would be much, much safer if women were fully in charge and were the only people on farm. And I've got no evidence to back that up other than my gut feeling. But why not?

Why not get your partner, your wife, your mum, your daughter, whatever, you know, And I think women see danger a lot quicker and clearer than men. We might not have been told what to do by our better halves, but sometimes it's good for us maybe, or.

Maybe get your, your mate's other half to give that perspective because it's easy, it's probably easier hearing it from Hannah than it would be to hear it from your own. So yeah, get your mates involved in that is true.

And it would probably save a lot of divorce proceedings or at least arguments at nighttime, wouldn't it?

Jim, I feel like you need to come and do a safety audit of, of the farm now. I don't.

I'm not a safety professional, as you can clearly tell. Not an official one, but my lack of arm.

But yeah, you know what, you know, as long as people do it in the right, in the right mindset and it's not that judge. And the one thing that we hate as a species is to be judged by other people.

And, and quite often, maybe sometimes we do feel like we get judged by our, our neighbors, you know, when they're looking over the hedge. I know, I know some people who come down my lane and know exactly what crops I've got growing. They've got no need to come down my lane.

It doesn't go anywhere. And I'm not talking about Andy because he's going to come up to get some sandwiches.

But, but there are some other people that we know that, that will, you know, come down and it does, you know, it can feel a bit judgy.

So I think if you do, if you do want to do that sort of thing and, and bring someone on farm, it needs to be done in the right, in the right way and, and, you know, over a beer and a chat rather than a pointy finger. And, you know, my farm's better than yours, but I'm more than happy to come and, and, and, and have a look around Hannah.

And equally, I would probably need somebo around mine because, like I say, I am not a safety professional either. And we all have bits that could be improved.

So I suppose, you know, what would you be advising to any of our listeners? Is there any one particular message that you'd like to get across to them.

From your experience when things are going.

Are going wrong, especially in the, in the middle of harvest or, you know, you're having a busy day, the baler's blocked up for the 10th time, the combine's messing about, you're in a rush and your head is not where it was, and we've all been there and the red mist descends and everything has to be done there and then, and you rush out. That's when you do something you shouldn't do, like not turn the PTO off when you jump out.

And so my advice has always been just take five or 10 seconds, take a deep breath and look at what you're about to do. Is that going to be, you know, is there an outcome where it's not. I'm not gonna come out of this very well, you know, and don't rush into it.

And I think a lot of us would perhaps make different choices if they thought about that. And don't be afraid to slow down, ask for help. Go and find a better way of doing it. There's always another day.

Hopefully you're a long time dead, as my granddad used to say.

Well, there you go, Hannah. Was that an easy return to action on the Ag show for you?

Nice to. Yeah, nice to interview a familiar face to ease me back in. So thanks for setting that one up, guys.

So anyway, are you going to bore us with more details of your. Of your honeymoon?

I think I'm just going to pepper some anecdotes throughout the remaining lifetime of this podcast.

Well, you'll be pleased to know that we didn't exhaust the list of. Or the pot of dad jokes that Stasher recorded for us.

So we'll be still peppering those in, so you're going to have to listen to them for the second time round. So they are to come on future ag shows. There's been a bit of a debate while you were away as to what we're going to call listeners to the ag show.

I was fairly adamant, and I still am, that it should be agers. Charlotte got told that maybe be. Was it the. Not the angry mob, the agmob.

They'll be angry if you call them aggers. Maybe. I'm gonna stick with Dear Listener. I think that might just be the extent that mine would be. Dear Listener.

Suggestions, please, serious or otherwise. Agshowhdb.org UK Any suggestions for future topics as well.

And you know, in our introductions, we always say that we deliver a new episode every Wednesday. Well, guess what's happening next week? We're going out on a Thursday instead. Blame Farm24.

We're coinciding with that big push across the farming industry. So for one week only, although we'll probably replicate it next year, we are going to go out on Thursday, so.

Until then, it's goodbye from me.