The AG Show might’ve just stumbled on something genuinely handy for farmers ahead of the next round of the Sustainable Farming Incentive. We’re joined by one of the brains at AHDB behind a new tool that helps you see what different SFI actions could actually mean for your own farm - so you can make smarter calls. Plus, we hear from a farmer who’s already put it to the test.

We’ll also be chatting to the head of the Association of Independent Meat Suppliers as AIMS hits a big milestone - 25 years.

And we’ll get into herbal leys too, catching up with organisers from a recent event focused on growing and managing multi-species swards.

SOME USEFUL BITS (FROM AHDB & BEYOND)

SFI cost benefit tool | AHDB Tools

Sustainable Farming Incentive | AHDB

The Garlic Farm Isle of Wight | Farm Shop | Restaurant | Café

Association of Independent Meat Suppliers

FarmED - FarmED - Farm & Food Education England

Home | Niab

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What's your thoughts on Amazon delivering your fresh blueberries, Martin?

Well, I've got next day delivery, so they probably would survive that. But yeah, some of the packaging and getting squeezed through the letterbox might get a bit splurged.

Apparently they're gonna start offering certain locations, certain postcodes you can get same day delivery for fresh foods. And it would almost be like using your prime rather than having to do it that it's associated with a retail.

And it's probably that I had a very bad experience this week that I had an item left out that had not had any packaging, got absolutely well soaked in rain.

I was thinking, yeah, I probably wouldn't want to think about ordering my strawberries to get delivered and left on my front porch, but each their own, eh?

Yeah, but you gotta make sure you've got the billing address correct. So the wife, she ordered a book for holiday recently, got it delivered to her stepfather and instead. So I'm sure he's had a good read of that.

But yeah, always double check. And I guess if you're doing fresh foods. No to the Amazon locker, don't have.

Any cream left in there for a week.

No, that's it. Yeah, it'll be like return to sender. Hi, I'm Martin Winch, AKA producer Martin.

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

Coming up in this week's episode we've got details of a new sustainable farming incentive tool.

That's right. The idea is to break down exactly what SFI choices could deliver tailored to your farm.

Uther is absolutely brilliant.

It's got some really clear filtering down the side, so you can just zero in on whatever options you're focusing on or interested in or relevant your farm or the cocktail of the few. And then it presents those options in the dropdown list. So it's really good at focusing.

We'll be hearing from the head of the association of Independent Meat Suppliers as Ames celebrates 25 years.

There was a large chunk of our industry that just wasn't being represented at any stage. So he pulled us all together.

So it wasn't necessarily being a disruptor became a disruptor because we saw that the issues that were not being addressed needed to be addressed.

And we'll be discussing Herbal Lays as we catch up with organizers of a recent event all about growing and managing multi species swards.

A reminder, as ever, new episodes of the Ag show drop every Wednesday at what time? Midday. That's correct. Available wherever you get your podcasts with.

Audio and video versions for every show, just subscribe to make sure you don't.

Miss an episode and get in touch. We'd love to hear from you, comment on any of our social posts or email hagshowhdb.org UK.

The Sustainable Farming Incentive, or SFI, is moving fast. And understanding what it means for your bottom line isn't always straightforward.

We've just launched a new cost benefit tool designed to change that.

Yeah, it goes beyond headline payment rates, factoring in real world costs and giving you a tailored view of what SFI actions could deliver on your very own farm. So how useful is it in practice and could it genuinely change decision making on farm?

We're now joined by our senior economist, Amandeep Kaur Purewell. So, Amandeep, welcome to the Ag Show. Now, what problem were you trying to solve with this tool?

Thanks, Charlotte, it's good to be here. The problem we were trying to solve was that this was a brand new scheme that was introduced to farmers.

There were payment rates on the DEFRA website, there was instructions what to do, what actions were being involved, how they could apply. But what farmers were actually asking was like, what does it actually mean for my business? How do I apply it to my business?

And that was what we wanted to cut through that and try and make it as easy for them to see what would be the actual real life effects for them as they, if they enter this scheme. So the scheme itself's got like a variety of different actions farmers do. The concept is public money for public goods.

So you produce something, you know, you do carry out environmentally friendly actions on your farm. You farm in a friendly manner, you get paid a certain amount for doing those actions and delivering that environmental benefit.

And that's different from what farmers were doing before, because before they were getting paid for just on base on the area of land that they farmed. Now they're going to do something to get that money. To do those actions, they've got to incur a cost.

That's the tricky bit, because when you see the payment rates published by defra, you know they're just at the headline payment rates. It doesn't show you. You need to think about what costs are going to be involved.

How much of that payment rate am I actually going to get if I do those actions? And that's where we tried to make that bit more transparent, easy to understand, by doing our analysis on the sfi.

So before this tool was launched, the way we went about doing that was looking at using our own HDB model farms, farms in A spreadsheet using them as examples to show to farmers. If I did these actions on this model farm, this is how much income I could receive, this how it's going to affect my bottom line.

But now we've gone that one step further with this tool. So now farmers can put in their own numbers and see how it's going to affect them, work out the costs involved in doing that as well.

So they generally make a more informed decision before they apply for the scheme.

And I was going to say, I think that was one thing that really struck me when we were looking at this tool, that you can make it really specific for you because I can imagine that actually trying to think, oh, this farm, because we all. So many different farms run on so many different ways. That means that what works on one doesn't necessarily work on another.

Is that sort of an issue that there was for farmers before that they were trying to get their heads around sfi, work out what was best for them. But actually it's a bit of a struggle trying to figure that out from the examples that were on offer.

It was a bit of a minefield. So before initially there were like 102 actions.

They got rid of some that weren't deemed to be value for money or didn't have any good uptake. So that's kind of made things a bit easier because there's not a few actions to do a bit more streamlined.

I suppose as a pharmacist can be really mind boggling, all these changes going at the same time. You've got so much to deal with.

So anything that we can do to make things easier for them, to help them sort of see things clearly, because again, you might be blinded by an attractive payment rate of, I don't know, £800 per hectare.

But have you thought that this can cost seed establishment any sort of opportunity cost involved in it, while the actual effect is going to be on your farm, so you might not get anywhere near as much and is it really worth you doing it and you know, going through all that process to do that? So it's just that they can actually think about things, step back. Okay, what does it actually mean from our farm? How is it going to affect.

My bottom line is it worth me doing it and putting the time in to do this.

Yeah.

And I think if you don't mind us like talking through a little bit more on this tool and on this point, it very much goes beyond, you know, the initial. Yes.

Like you say, might get £800 a hectare for this, but because it includes in what you're having to put in too, how much does that actually change that overall picture that the farmer's going to see as to whether this scheme might be worthwhile for them.

So, for example, there's different elements here. First of all, how much, how the cost, weigh it with the sort of payment rate.

So I'll take a cover crop, for example, if the payment rate for that's about £129 per hectare from the cost from the tool, for example, we've worked at that based on just average seed cost or establishment cost. And then the sort of destruction cost at the end, if you're going to do that is basically that comes up to about roughly £105, etc.

£106 Off the top of my head. So you see, you might think you're getting 229 pounds, but like more than half of that is going to go in the cost.

So then you can see, oh, actually how much I'm going to. How much am I going to make? Not as much as I initially thought. But then, you know, you will do these actions with different things.

So you will get some actions, obviously deliver a bit more.

It just depends, it really depends on maybe the setup of your farm already, because a lot of farmers might be doing some of these actions already or their farm might be set up in a way where they have to make minimal adjustments to do these actions, in which case you might get quite much more of a net payment from these actions. It's just kind of like to see where am I going to be able to.

Which ones are worthwhile in terms of the economic sense to get those done, where am I not really making much. I might actually be losing some money there. So it's just trying to help sort that out. It also kind of depends.

Depends not just on the economics, actually. I know, I know this tool actually is obviously a cost benefit benefit tool and it focuses on the finances, but farmers don't.

Not all farmers are going to be going down that route.

So some of them might be more environmentally, you know, focused anyway, and then they might want to still do that action anyway, regardless of if they don't make a massive margin of money, they might do it for.

I want to do this because I want to improve my soil health and then going forward, it's going to be better for my yields going forward and then I will get a return from that.

So there's all these different individual circumstances to think about and the tool just kind of helps you or guides you to see this one aspect of it and just make your life a bit easier in terms of planning ahead for that.

Previously, there's been an awful lot of chat around stacking when it comes to SFI and different ways that you can do, like you're saying, to maximize potentially your payments. So how could this tool help farmers explore some of these stacking combinations and then equally avoid some poor choices?

Perhaps within the tool you've got all the actions to choose from that are available in SFI 26, plus the relevant supplementary actions. You know, some actions you can choose.

If you choose a certain action, you can then do some supplementary actions in addition to those on the same bit of land, just to boost your income there a bit further.

The tool allows you to choose as many options, actions as you want and then it sort of brings, it brings you like at the end, once you've gone through all of your selections and looked at the costs, etcetera, you can basically look at your overall amount that you would get for all of those options, like the total amount from everything you've chosen, how much you're going to receive at the end of the three year agreement, how much it's going to cost you to do all of those and then the overall net benefit, we're doing that whole package. But then it also kind of breaks it down action by action.

So you can see the individual net benefit of each action and then you can see, oh well, this one's, this one seems good, it's making me quite a bit of a profit there. This one, not so good. You know, it's always about breaking even. It's not really worth the hassle. I might just leave that out.

So you can see in terms of. That will help you with your stacking because you can see what's available.

Also the other thing now with SFY 26, there will be a cap on your agreement value. So you can't exceed over 100,000 pounds in value that you get from the agreement of the three years.

We haven't got it in at the moment for the launch that's happened now, but that's something we're going to build on. So there will be like a warning little sign coming in there saying you reach 100k limit.

And that will help farmers as well in that respect, in terms of when they're stacking all these different things together.

Well, this tool sounds super cool, super easy to use, but it would be remiss of us on the Ag show if we didn't give it an extra bit of testing.

And I know someone who has used it already in anger as part of the official testing actually, for the tool, and that's Barnes Edwards, a garlic farmer down in the Isle of Wights. He uses livestock in the rotation and I just asked him how he had found the tool, how he got on with it.

The really good thing about it is it's bringing it into a platform that's easy to understand, easy to model and then easy to see what the effect of a cocktail of options might mean for you, sort of commercially. Yeah.

It wasn't highlighting anything revelatory in and around SFI or anything like that, but it's just bringing it together in that way that makes it useful.

Yeah. Now, before we carry on talking about the tool, you're quite the diversified operation, aren't you, down on the Isle of Wight?

Just remind me what you've got going on on farm.

Yeah. So we grow garlic and we have livestock integrated with that rotation. So we're.

We're now certified organ, about three years into that, certified pasture for life. So we've got outwintered native breed pastured livestock whizzing round a herbal lay rotation, which is how we're growing the garlic.

And then we've got a shop and restaurant and accommodation at the farm.

And we sell a range of about 60 or so, pickles, chutneys, mayonnaises, sauces, as well as the whole head garlic, fresh, smoked and black across farm shops all over the uk.

A busy man, but you found time to help us in developing this tool. So many thanks for that.

When you actually used this tool, did it actually kill off any ideas that you maybe were quite keen on before you crunched any numbers? Or was it a case of they reaffirmed it all?

It really helped with prioritizing the options that we are hoping to build in, because the costs are integrated within the tool, so the payment you're going to get is there and the costs are modeled.

Obviously you need to do your own sense check with those costs, because you might find ways that you can do it for less or do it for more than is modelled, but it very clearly shows you almost like a financial priority for the options that you'd be undertaking. So that's pretty useful.

And is it laid out in a easy to use manner? Is it quite simple to get on with?

I thought it was absolutely brilliant.

It's got some really clear filtering down the side, so you can just zero in on the, you know, grasslander, arable or woodlands, you know, whatever options you're focusing on or interested in or relevant to your farm or the cocktail of the few. And then it presents those options in the dropdown list. So it's really good at focusing. I don't know how much I contributed, really.

I mean, I just sort of used it whilst they were watching me and it was a bit guinea pig, but, you know, I hope it was helpful to the developers in some way. But one thing that did crop up, I don't know all the option codes and specifically what they mean and what you need to do for them.

I'm not sure that anyone does, apart from a very practiced land agent or something, because there's so many of them and the detail of which ones apply, what you, you know, what you actually need to deliver.

So I found I was scrolling between the ahdb tool, which is brilliant, and then the, you know, the DEFRA site to actually interpret what each of those codes were. So I had sort of two tabs going on with the browser to just cross reference and the developers saw that as being quite an interesting opportunity.

So as a result, they've built the links to the option codes into the tool.

So as you're going through and modeling it, you can kind of open up a live link in a different window about that specific option, which I think is useful.

So you're wanting to take credit for that idea?

I'm definitely royaltying that. Yeah, I've got it fully trademarked and, yeah, looking forward to retirement.

This is another key thing we were aware of was that we wanted to get the tool available a little bit before the application started, just so that farms got a chance to play around, investigate different scenarios, see what they could do on their farm. For the June application window for SFO 26, there'll be two application windows. One's in June, one's in September.

For June, it'll be open to all farms that are between 3 hectares and 50 hectares, and also any farms that are not currently in an ELMS agreement. So they are not in SFI or any other sort of ELMS agreement at all.

They will get first preference of SFI 26 and for that June window, defraud indicated that on 18 June applications will start to open for those like a small number of farmers opened on an invitation basis only just to test the new system out, basically to see there's no teething problems. And then for everybody else in that category, for the small farms and non existing agreements, it opened 30 June.

So this tool kind of gives, you know, even ahead of that you've got enough time to play with the tools, make your plans and then obviously those are going to be eligible for the September window. You've got the whole summer to play around and see what you're going to be doing.

And we will be carrying on making incremental sort of improvements to the usability of the tools just to make it more easier and flexible for farmers during this period.

What I would say is when we were having to play around with it earlier, it's very intuitive, it does make sense. Even I could make sense of how to use it.

But yeah, there's always room for improvement on things and it's great that you guys are looking into how we can make that even more user friendly now. Amandeep, if people do want to use the tool, where can they find that?

They'll be able to find main HDB Tools page on the HDB website and also via our HDB SFI pages, which contains all the information about sfi, our previous stacking analysis as well, and then the links to the tool and all accompanying information on how the costs are calculated, how to use the tools that'll be available on those pages as well.

And we'll make sure it's linked in our show notes. So if you are listening, you want to find it, go to our show notes, it'll be in there too.

Thank you for sticking with the AG Show on this Wednesday or Thursday or Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday. I think I've covered off any possible day that you might be listening slash watching this particular episode.

It is the time of the show though that we look at some of our news picks. Gonna start with you, Charlotte. What have you seen in the last week or so?

Yeah, I've been reading in a range of industry press, so the Grocer, Farmers Weekly, Meat Management, Pig World, you name it, it's probably been in there.

All about a legal ruling relating to the UK meat industry this week after the High Court found that the Food Standards Agency has been unlawfully taxing slaughterh houses, with the extent of the overcharging being classed as significant.

The case brought by the association of Independent Meat Suppliers, British Meat Processors association and the nfu, challenged how the FSA calculates and applies fees that are known as official controls, the food safety and hygiene checks carried out in abattoirs. At the heart of the ruling is what costs the FSA is actually allowed to recover from the industry.

The court found the agency had gone too far, including costs that aren't permitted under legislation, such as management and administrative overheads, as well as time spent by trainee or insufficiently qualified vets. As a result, the High Court has ordered that the current charging system, including the headline hourly rates, must be scrapped and recalculated.

So this is actually quite a big deal financially. Official controls cost the sector around £64 million a year, and fees have been rising sharply, so up by around 24% this year alone.

For processors and farmers, this ruling is being seen as a major win.

Industry groups have long argued that businesses were being forced to pay for inefficiencies in the system and for costs that had little to do with frontline inspection work. There's also wider supply chain impacts here.

Rising inspection charges have been flagged as key pressures on abattoirs, particularly for those smaller sites with concerns that they could drive closures, reduce local processing capacity and ultimately hit livestock farmers through having to take longer journeys and have fewer options.

The ruling now opens the door to potential refunds for past overpayments, as well as lower costs going forward, though the exact details will be settled in further court proceedings. So it's back to the drawing board for the FSA on how it funds food safety inspections.

But for the meat sector, it's a moment that could reset the balance between regulation costs and industry viability. Martin, what have you been reading?

Well, it's another story, actually, that was picked up by several media outlets recently.

I first came across it on the BBC website, and that's a major climate warning from the United nations, where scientists say a new El Nino could arrive within weeks and has the potential to be one of the strongest we've actually seen in decades. Now, El Nino, it's driven by unusually warm water in the Pacific Ocean. And when that happens, it doesn't just stay there. Oh, no.

It reshapes weather right across the globe. So it really does have a big impact. What does this mean?

Well, we're talking about a high risk of droughts, of floods, heat waves and wildfires all hitting different regions at once and potentially putting pressure on food production and supply chains.

The big concern this time is that it's happening on Top of climate change, which could amplify those impacts and push global temperatures even higher. So the message from the UN is pretty clear.

This is coming, it could be significant and governments and industry, including farming, need to be ready for what's ahead.

Is that why you're wearing your holiday shirt, Martin?

It might be. I'm covering all bases. I've got a Kigol just out there in case it suddenly starts tipping it down as well.

The wellies are on under the desk, Eh?

That's it. I've got half shorts on and half trousers on, so I'm ready to roll whatever the weather.

And, yeah, if needs be, I can open the window to let in the breeze. So, yeah, I think I'm prepared. I'm a man for all seasons. Anyway, let's move on.

Now, I mentioned AIMS in my news pick a minute ago and I wanted to focus on them a little more because this year is the 25th anniversary of the association of Independent Meat Suppliers.

And our very own Phil Maiden caught up with executive director Dr. Jason Aldiss at AX HDB's recent Red Meat Exports conference. Well, safe to say Jason didn't pull any punches.

So, Jason, we've got the opportunity to sit on these lovely thrones here at Butcher's hall today. Making use of them feels like quite a. An imposing scene. But we're just having a bit of a chat about. About AMES and the last 25 years.

Obviously, you're the executive director of AMES and the organisation, I understand, started as a bit of a disruptor, born out of the foot and mouth crisis. Do you feel the organization is still there challenging the system or are you part of it now?

Really good point.

And it was a vision that Norman Bagley had that there was a large chunk of our industry that just wasn't being represented at any stage. So he pulled us all together.

So it wasn't necessarily being a disruptor, became a disruptor, but because we saw that the issues that were not being addressed needed to be addressed. So he saw it as being a service to support that particular the independent sector.

Over the years, it's just grown and it was my absolute pleasure to be appointed last year as the Executive director. But I worked very closely with Norman, so Norman's still very active. And for 25 years I was on the other side, I was on the regulatory side.

So I've seen both sides of the equation. I know exactly what was done wrong from my point of view over those 25 years. So I'm seeing this as my next 25 years to put all of those wrongs right.

And in your conference speech earlier this year you said the industry comes to aims when there's a problem. What sorts of problems are on your desk right now?

Clearly we as businesses generally have, have the ongoing problems of cost of living and all the associated regulatory problems, et cetera.

The industry in this country has a particular problem with over regulation, poor regulation and frankly staff that are not adequately trained and supervised, poor English who have real communication difficulties, real issues, trying to do your daily business processing the finest meat in the world that we have. And frankly we're hampered the whole time.

So we have FSA charges, we have export certification judge all problems we have at the borders, massive levels of red tape that's just bunged up our whole industry that's frankly running on wafer thin margins and there's a total lack of understanding. Someone in the FSA said to me, well, look at that business, it makes millions of pounds a year.

I said, no, no, it generates, the revenue is millions of pounds a year, but the actual net profit at the end of it is minute and actually possibly not even viable in accountancy terms. There's no concept, no understanding.

It does come across that you don't necessarily agree with the FSA on how the process works, but you agree with the principle that maintaining food safety is.

Absolutely paramount, maintaining an independent verifier, that standards are being maintained at the highest level. That industry will require of itself, which is higher than any regulatory standard. That's important and we've got to have that.

I've got to turn to the fact that we're sat on these rather lavish looking thrones today because we're recording this interview at Butcher's hall where we are actually here for HDB's Red Meat Exports conference. It's a very poignant setting being at Butcher's hall when we're talking about red meat and. And yes, indeed.

Why is this being at this event important for you?

This is a key part of AHD function. The export trade is so important and, and we have the best product and we just need to go out and shout about it.

And this is what HDB Exports team are doing and they're fantastic at doing it. And so this is just pulling everyone Together telling them, telling us what you are doing and we will help in every which way we can. It's fantastic.

If I was government, I'd be saying pour more resources in, shout about our product more, sell more of it and open the markets.

That's the Executive Director of AIMS, Dr. Jason Aldiss speaking to Phil. Some strong opinions there and I think actually we'll use some of the points raised as topics to discuss on future Ag show episodes.

It's the Ag show, if you want to get in touch. Agshowhdb.org uk is the email address to send in any requests for future topics. Selfies, autographs, you name it.

It's Charlotte and I producer Martin here this week. Now, last month we put on a SC to Feed event at Farmed, a demonstration farm and education centre in the rolling Oxfordshire countryside.

The aim was to learn about growing and managing multi species swards to improve livestock performance and boost economic return.

Afterwards, HDB's Emily Udall caught up with Ian Wilkinson from Farm Ed and Cotswold Seeds as well as Ellie Roberts from Niab. Ian began by explaining the key messages about species selection from the day.

There's obviously a big choice of species and we know that it if we have a good number of species which would be in excess of 6 and probably no more than say 18, and if they're all significantly different, we can get astonishing results by combining them together.

So I think the purpose of the event for me was to just give an understanding of that concept because many of us have moved away from really simple mixtures of one or two species to now these quite complex ones and we're seeing benefits, especially in light of a changing climate.

We spoke a bit about climate resilience and deeper rooting plants, so that leads quite well onto establishment. So what were you talking about, Ellie?

The important things to remember with establishing a diverse lei is that the majority of these species want to be sown really shallow, so no more than 1cm and they really need to be have good seed soil contact.

So lots of soil particles in contact with the seed so they can absorb moisture through them and they can get busy interacting with the enzyme exchanges that are happening. That shallow, sowing, good consolidation, rolling.

A lot of people will roll before they sow and again once or twice after they sow into nice warm moist seabeds. Yeah. Most of the failures that are with establishment due to them being sewn too deep.

The discussion soon moved on to the most British of things. The weather, I was talking about it earlier and the impact it has on decisions in the field.

We all seem to be experiencing the same thing, cold wet winters followed by no rain in late spring and into the summer, often after a really cold spring. And it's really difficult to farm like that.

So we need to get, you know, we need to get really good at sowing things and really understanding how the small changes that we make as farmers in terms of our management when we sow really deliver big time, if we get it right. And you know, think about it, these are herbal lays in the ground probably what, three, four, five years.

So the establishment bit is absolutely critical to the effect that you have over the length of time they're in the ground for.

So it's worth spending as much these, like the rolling and the detail on the depth of sewing, for example, and waiting for that moment where the temperature's right and the moisture's there and get it in and that's when it's not three weeks later when you can do it, then it's the right time.

I think you mentioned it's worth the investment in machinery, potentially, or whether you're borrowing or contractors putting it in. So then lastly on management, I think we had some quite good take homes from the audience. Audience a couple of mentions of how they were grazing it.

So set stocking, bees, mob grazing.

And so what would be, what were.

Your recommendations and how you manage it here at the Red.

I think we're same mind here, really, aren't we? It's got to be not set stocked.

Yeah, well, the thing with set stocking is that you're defoliating the plant.

The plant is then going to use its root reserves to produce a new leaf to start capturing that sunlight energy and continue to grow and replenish its stocks.

With set stocking, you're defoliating that plant and as soon as it's got its emergency leaf up, you're defoliating it again, potentially depending on how hard you do it.

So with some of these species, which are annual plants, rather than just perennial grassland plants, they need that time to regenerate and to recoup their reserves and you will actually get more total forage out of even just grassland, diverse grassland, permanent pasture.

If you carefully manage your grazing and set stocking is, out of all the different approaches you can take, set stocking is the one that is least productive in terms of the total forage that you can, can get from that grassland.

There are practicalities, of course, because there's fencing, there's stock management, there's, there's water supply so it's not about saying that you have to have this one approach, it's one system for everything.

But if you want to increase the diversity of the plants and to maintain that throughout the season and year on year, then you need to be sympathetic with your grazing management and then you'll get the benefits out of that.

So if you have some other grassland, whether it's permanent pasture or another lay that you can use to kind of buffer and move livestock out onto, then make use of that as the part of, of your system.

And in case you were wondering about what Farmed is, Ian gave this explanation.

We've been here now for 12 years and it's a demonstration farm centre where we will meet, like we've done today. So we have really sometimes quite difficult conversations. It might be around the use of fertilisers or glyphosate, it might be around food systems.

Today's been brilliant around herbal lays. My favourite subject.

We're a place where people come to and we get farming folk, of course, you know, farmers and growers, and we also get other people that are maybe policy or, you know, new entrants into agriculture, academics and scientists, that sort of thing. But it's just an amazing place.

And honestly, when we first came here, you know, I used to look up the farm drive and think, I wonder if anyone's ever going to come down. I genuinely did. I thought this could be the biggest mistake I've ever made.

But it turns out that because everyone's concerned about the food system and how we do it, then actually there is hope.

You've got plenty of visitors. It's lovely to be here. Thank you very much for hosting. And Ellie, what are you doing at niab or what is your role in research?

So NIAB originally started out over 100 years ago now as a seed certification organisation to ensure that the seed farms were getting was good quality and would grow. It's evolved and developed over the years to become wider in the crop science, anything from genetics through to agronomy and on farm practice.

I'm the forage crop specialist, so I look after a range of forage crops and that includes the recommended list for grass and clovers that is published by the hdb and a range of research projects and different topics, including herbal lays and under sowing maize with other species. Again, again, the same principle, getting these mixture of different species in the ground. So it's very varied and interesting.

So, Charlotte, that's it for another ag show. How was it for you having to look at my shirt

Jazzy I think is the word I would use to describe it. Jazzy.

So any listeners want to know what the shirt looks like, do please check out our YouTube version. Or we do offer videos actually on Spotify as well, so plenty of ways to get your ag show.

And don't forget, do subscribe to the podcast wherever you do listen to us to make sure that you don't miss an episode. We come along every Wednesday at midday with a fresh take from the world of agriculture.

I have to say, Martin, I have been completely blinded by your shirt and I can't remember if you've even plugged this, but we do love it when people reach out and speak to us.

You can do that on any of our socials or emailing [email protected] UK we do love hearing from you and you never know, you could join us on a recording and see producer Martin's next fabulous shirt that he's going to wear and be equally bamboozled by it.

Until next time, bye.