Why British Farming Is On The Brink of Collapse

0:00Welcome to Catching Up With The Royals, a brand new show with me Richard Coles. And me, Emily Andrews. Every week we'll be going beyond the headlines, lifting the lid, and what life is really like behind the palace walls. Hello, sir. Good morning. I'm the Sun's new royal correspondent. Oh, he said, look at me up and down. Things are looking up. We'll be diving into the moments everyone's talking about. What does the world owe you if all of a sudden you've handed back your crown? Meghan and Harry can't keep hold of their staff. We'll reveal the secrets of an organisation usually shrouded in mystery and explore defining moments of royal history to see how the past still shapes the monarchy today.

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1:01Welcome back to the Unprocessed Truth. If you're tired of scrolling through perfectly packaged advice and unproven diet claims, well, you've come to the right place. We're officially done with the noise. We're cutting through the marketing myths, the health halos, and the wellness scams to talk about what actually works for real life. We're going to be inviting on experts, scientists, and leading professionals in their field to get deep on the subjects you care about most so that we can discuss the nuance and really understand what you need to know to make an impact on your life.

1:42In the studio today is a man who has lived the farm life. He's built an audience sharing content about real food and you share my view that ultra processed foods aren't just ruining our health, but they are doing more to our environment and our system. Henry Wood, aka Rambling Henry. Welcome to the studio. How are you? Very well, thank you. Yeah, thanks for having me and love what you do as well. So yeah, it's an honour. Thanks for coming on. So for our listeners who don't know you necessarily, what got you into all this? How would you describe who you are and why are you going so deep on changing the farming system?

2:20From the very start, I grew up really overweight massively obese and i was really deeply unhappy with who i was then i moved to the city i lost a bit of weight and i continued to yo-yo with my weight then i went to work the land in australia and i realized how disconnected everyone is from food even at the farmer level and i thought this is the reason that so many people become obese and become so disconnected from food is because of the ultra processed food we're eating and it starts at the farm level and it filters all the way down to children who are getting addicted to ultra processed foods becoming extremely unhappy in their lives and that's that's a huge huge driver of what I'm doing you know I have family members who are affected by it I've been affected by it you're never too far away from someone who's really feeling the damages of this system that we've built.

3:12So what are you doing now what are you working on? Well, at the moment, I'm trying to educate the nation on just how bad these ultra processed products are. And I think the best way to do that is to understand what ingredients they're made out of to unpack the processes of what actually goes into these things. And also, I've started a company exploring methods to drive omega three levels up in our meat, in our milk, in our eggs and I'm working on that as well so I guess you could say I'm a real food activist or something like that yeah amazing but no I love the piece around omega-3s because omega-3s are so fundamental to our health we all know we should eat more fish but actually we can naturally farm more omega-3 into our diet in other ways as well absolutely yeah it's called golden of olden very good so let's get into a bit about farming because farmers are in the news a lot we all should support british farmers we love them but from someone who's got first-hand experience what would you say is going on when these british farms are growing wheat monocrop like what's happening what are we producing in the uk yeah it's it's interesting so when we heavily push one crop we don't give the land time to basically regenerate and when we don't do that the soil gets damaged and it's funny because you can see the same thing in our health you just eat wheat all the time you're not going to be a very healthy person you need that diversity in your gut and just like the gut the soil needs diversity as well and we can artificially produce and we can artificially regenerate that soil but over time it's nothing compared to what nature can do for that soil and when you spray these crops in abundance with sprays and chemicals it they become so dependent the land becomes so dependent and eventually it becomes totally and utterly tolerant to it i mean a bit like a drug you know you have to increase the prescription and after a while just like an antibiotic it will have no effect at all and we won't be able to grow things at all and if we continue to eat these same four crops that don't really nourish us at all we're going to see a complete destruction of of food in the next hundred years and we it's time to to really do something about it i've heard the figure banded around that it's we've got 70 good harvests left before the soils are just dead and nutrient devoid and nothing will grow in it what are farmers aware of that yeah I really I don't want to offend anyone but I really feel like the farmers that I spoke to there was not really any much care for it it was almost like take the paycheck that's how the system is we're never going to change it but at the same time I I noticed a lot of unhappiness.

6:18You know, you look at farmers in the UK even, and they have one of the highest suicide rates for a profession in the country. And the pressure, it's not from farming, because listening to the land and growing food for people can be one of the most rewarding, happy jobs in the world. What the pressure comes from is the debt dependency on the machinery that you have to use to keep up with these sprays, to keep up with the chemicals, the ever moving future and technology of agriculture that's pushed to profit massive corporations when there's no real profit in nurturing and nourishing humans in the land because it's a return to basics.

6:58And so farmers get caught up in this system where they, I think, deep down are quite unhappy about it and they don't even really understand why. and I met an amazing man called William Chase who was a conventional potato farmer and he farmed potatoes for 20 years for Tyrrell crisps yeah and you know I think he got in a bit of a bad place himself and I went to see his farm and he now runs a totally organic regenerative or apple farm down over in Ledbury and he's really leading the way a bit like we discussed earlier about big little farm and you grow many different virus varieties of apples many different diversifying crops that different bugs attack at different times and it's all about that knowledge of how to steward the land and there's definitely another way to do it but so much of the education of how we're educated on how it works is funded by a lot of the organizations that benefit from using massive synthetic fertilizers and chemicals.

8:02Big agri-tech businesses. So what would you say the biggest challenge farmers are actually facing right now? Well, we look at the inheritance tax in the UK. I think that's a huge challenge and it's really going to crush a lot of these small producers that so many communities rely on for real food. And that's a real, real problem. I think also a massive issue they're facing is a shortage of labor because there's just not any money in it. It's long, hard hours. And the accommodation isn't always the best because it's got this stigma of being dirty and not the best conditions. And people can go to the city and make a lot of money.

8:44And it's all geared up for doing that. But actually turn around and say, is that bringing real happiness? And I'd argue that a lot of people in the city would probably love to be able to be well paid and live in the countryside. but there's just not the market for that anymore we don't see the same amount of artisanal mills and bakeries and butchers and there's just not a demand for it so the more local food that we buy the higher the demand becomes and the more change we'll see so what is it then about the inheritance tax because the farmers were protesting outside westminster a few days ago it's a big problem that the farmers are really worried about.

9:23So what's going on there? So with this inheritance tax, it means that the small farm will not be able to be passed down to the son, daughter, the next of kin. And that means it opens up the land and the farm to be bought by big agribusiness. and they will use the land to grow these four major crops out of 300 ,000 plants in the world that many can potentially nourish us and grow on poor soil with a lot less input. But what do they profit from is the chemical regime and the chemical plan. So when these farms get handed over to that big corporation, that's what's going to be grown and we'll see more ultra-processed food on the shelves, not real food.

10:08But playing devil's advocate, right, The threshold is a million pounds. So if your farm's worth under a million, you don't pay inheritance tax. A lot of people would say that's fair. They're quite wealthy if they have a million pounds of assets. Is that the case or how does it work in farms? I think a million pounds adds up very easily and very quickly on a farm. The land alone is worth so much. Fertile land in the UK is very, very expensive, very premium. the machinery you know for a single small tractor quite old you're looking at a hundred thousand i remember some of the the gear out in australia was 600 grand for a sprayer or wow really for a harvester yeah yeah my goodness australian so that's sort of 300 000 uk and all the little bits of machinery buildings that add up and you're so easily at a million you know you see you could go to a farm and think this is just a house with a big garden but it will be well over a million you know you you get a lot of properties that uh you'd never think were a million pounds with a small garden and they're not doing anything to farm they've got some astroturf in the in the yard yeah and they're worth a million pounds so a million pounds in today's world is not very much money when it comes to assets and property well i mean you can work it out quite easily if you've got a harvester and two three tractors you're on half a million and then your house on the farm is probably at least going to be half a million if you have a four-bedroom house so yeah you're straight at that million and then what does that do to that family that's been ripped apart like generationally handed down farm to farm to farm like grandkid to grandkid to grandkid and then all of a sudden oh the government need 40 of it yeah yeah it's gonna decimate them absolutely and it's It's a real problem.

12:00And when we don't have these families that know the land, connected to the land, they understand how to work with the land, then there's, and also their community, you know, they're not just generational families, but also their neighbours, their parents would have grown up together. And the community of trade, of food that they have is so valuable and precious, and it really does nourish and feed people. and if we tore it all down and everyone moved into the city and there was no small farmers then we'd all be eating the same monoculture crops and we'd all be eating ultra processed food. When we see these small farmers disappear we see a massive loss of community of trade and in that area they understand the land they know their community it goes back generations just like their parents owned the farm they would have also provided food for that same community And when we lose that, we really do lose our source of real food.

12:54And we pass it over to corporations who know how to profit from the same monoculture crops. And we'll all be eating the same ultra processed food that doesn't nourish us. It profits them. So what's the biggest issue in farming that actually nobody's talking about? So the inheritance tax has had a lot of coverage. They're protesting very well. Good on them. Keep going. Try and get this thing abolished because it seems dumb to me. But what about something that's a bit more dark, a bit more hidden that we don't understand? Going back to these four main crops that have been pushed ever since the 1850s, we learned how to feed the world and grow these crops in abundance.

13:33And they swept across the world. You know, we saw canola. It was a surplus crop left over from World War II, as it was very efficient at lubricating steam engines because it sticks to metal at high heat. and then we go and eat it, which is great. And obviously Canadian scientists, they bred a version that was low in erucic acid, got the green light to call it healthy and all of a sudden it's grown as canola, Canadian oil, low acid and it's grown all over the world. But there's another crop called camelina, for example, that was quietly pushed aside right up until the 1900s. It's the cousin of rapeseed and it grows in exactly the same soil, if not worse and poorer soils with a lot less input, a lot less chemical needed.

14:19And there's no strive to grow that because you don't need to genetically modify it. You don't need to play around with it and hybridise it and patent it and then you can profit from it. And also it's half the yield. So I think it's quite a nice, beautiful metaphor of how we need to nourish ourselves and kind of slow down the pace of life a little bit. You know, we're all running around in this rat race and I feel like it's all connected. Is that, sorry, is that why it's rapeseed oil here? Because that's the name of the plant And then in the US, it was Canadian oil, low acid, canola. Yeah, canola.

14:50And that exact same strain that was bred to be canola was sent back to us and we kept the name rapeseed. But that exact same strain that they hybridized to be low in erucic acid was then sent back to the UK. And in the 70s, we saw a rapeseed boom. But it's a crop that we would never have touched to eat for thousands of years. It was first discovered in ancient India to burn for oil lamp fuel. Really? Wow. Because you see those beautiful yellow fields. They look majestic. They look lovely in the countryside. And you think, oh, it's just a plant. Yeah. But it's actually, you're saying it's a manufactured strain of a plant.

15:29It was used in the natural way. So plants were crossbred under a lamp in a warehouse. So using nature. But a lot of them now are genetically modified. Not in the UK though, right? It's illegal. But in the US, it definitely is. In the US you can, yeah. And yeah, there's no strive to look at crops that nourish us. Out of 300 ,000 plants, these four main crops are grown because they work with the system, they work with the chemicals. And a lot of farmers are locked into contracts as well. Oh really? Yeah. You can't just grow what you want on a farm? Not in a roundabout way. So the way they get locked in is they'll sign a contract with a chemical company and the seed will work with that chemical.

16:14So they kind of get locked in through that contract of chemical and that seed contract. So before farmers could save their seeds, they could experiment, they could hybridise it themselves, but these seeds are patented and they only work with the chemical that's designed by a huge corporation. So it's locking the land and the farmer into a huge dependency cycle and there's no strive to want to grow other crops that nourish us. Have you seen any of these contracts? Like how long are they for? Is it, you know, five-year, ten-year contracts that they're locked in for? I've never seen a contract personally.

16:52I've never seen how long they are for. But when you go with a chemical company, you pretty much, it's a bit like a farmer marrying a tractor brand. You know, they choose John Deere and they're John Deere for life and then they go with a chemical company and that's what serves them well and it works with their life and they don't have to stress about it and they get sent the chemical and that's how it works. And not only does it enter a contract with the farmer financially on a legislative level, but it's also making that land get into a contract it's never agreed with, you know, because the chemical is destroying that soil and becoming dependent on that chemical as well.

17:34yeah it's crazy really when you think about it because if we just wipe the slate clean today and said what's the best way to grow food for everybody what would you say to that so i massively think if we had a drive we've got some of the most incredible intelligent minds in the world we've got technology that can do arithmetic supercomputers that you could feed the amount of land there is, what crops do what things, every book on biology, every study on every crop, everything that's ever been written is at our fingertips. And to say that we wouldn't be able to do it as a human species, I think is just completely untrue.

18:21And I think there are certain crops, you look at sweet potato that could be grown in Western Australia. There's countries worth sizes of land in Western Australia where you could grow sweet potatoes, you could grow camelina these crops would nourish us they'd nourish our livestock camelina is high in omega-3 and it would nourish our livestock it would return that omega balance that's another massive thing these crops a lot of them are high in omega-6 so sunflower oil it has a ratio balance of 200 to 1 omega-6 to omega-3 and if you look at a grass-fed animal its omega balance is one to one and if you look at our diets ancestrally our omega balance would be one to one and now our diets are 20 to 1 because we're fueling ourselves on these high omega-6 crops so if we really turned around and thought about what crops could work with drought prone areas with poor soil you take camelina i know i keep saying it but it grows in poor soil so there are real options there are real ways you look at this documentary big little farm of working with nature and i think the greatest minds in history got us to where we are to feed the world and i think now the greatest minds in history need to get us to a place where we can nourish the world if we you know go back into post-war Britain you know there were food shortages how do we feed this booming population that we had and that has driven us to create the modern farming system and arguably it wasn't with necessarily nefarious intention it was we need to feed the population how do we do it at scale affordably so everyone can eat right which is not a bad intention no absolutely not and i don't think for a second that anyone has a big master plan to to create these things but what we now can observe is that we have a high a highly inflamed global population the reason is because of these high omega-6 crops that we are living off day to day in ultra processed foods that's then created a symptom-based pharmaceutical industry.

20:23And so this system has become so powerful that it would do anything to defend itself. But if we can show people that there is another way that people can live happier, better lives from the top right to the bottom of all walks of life, then why wouldn't we do that? And I think it's the decision to change. I think the industrial revolution's over and we need a natural revolution. Hmm, nice. But so you touch on, you know, it's more than just farming. This is about our health too, what's driving our metabolic issues, chronic diseases. Are you saying it's just the seed oils or like what about sugar?

21:05Like what about the chemicals, the additives we have in our food? What's your view on, you know, is it all of them? Is it some of them? What's going on in ultra processed foods? Yeah, absolutely not to be ignored. You know, you look at the way ultra processed food is engineered. we take a substance like sugar beet and we refine it into a white powder that you can carefully control and add to a product to get the exact right levels that hits your brain to hook you. And so many of these products have ingredients designed to hook you, designed to fire the brain's neurokinetic, whatever it is, to make you go, wow, that was amazing.

21:44A bit like a drug, You know, it literally hits your brain. And we have, there's scientists in the world who are, it is their job to create food that's ultra addictive and hyper palatable. And I think the government should step in and say, well, that's abhorrent. We don't want that because then you have millions of kids who are born into that scenario where they become addicted to this food at an early age. It's permanent damage. Your fat cells never actually go away. They only shrink and expand. And, you know, I feel like I lost years of happiness, of relationships, of friendships, of life choices because I was obese from these foods.

22:25I mean, it really is that simple. And I think a lot of people are struggling in the same way. And I think the government needs to step in. It's a huge problem. And it's all in the name for people to profit when we should be protected from these substances as much as we are from class A drugs. well big statement but i mean i guess it affects more people right 63 percent of the uk is overweight or obese and then when you look at everybody eating cereal for breakfast which is all grain based all monocrop you know high carbohydrate high sugar low nutrition you know no protein no fats and yeah it's setting you on this kind of metabolic roller coaster sugar spikes out the days then you crave more you eat more snacks you eat more junk and in essence the government should look at that but i have actually seen the i think there's the british cereal association which is obviously an association created by kellogg's mars general mills all the big guys they fund this association and they published a report on you know the state of the nation's breakfast and health and they give it to government and go look how good cereal is look at what a good role it plays in the national diet because it's where most people get their fiber and we've actually reduced our sugar content by 20 over the last two decades so we're doing a fantastic job like well done us and it's an affordable way to feed the nation like they play on all these things that essentially mean the government have a very hard job going all right we're going to maybe stop people eating cereal for breakfast because it's not good and there's you know i mean there's studies that show kids who have a high gi breakfast and then go to school versus kids who have a low gi breakfast uh and then go to school and their concentration is better so this doesn't even have to be about health it can be about education right but these facts aren't getting to the government because they're kind of mirrored in this world of murky chaos where big industry is kind of feeding them yeah the information so how do you think we break that cycle and get the right information out there well i mean the extravagant answer is you need a billionaire to lobby back in the right way you know that old chestnut do you know anything yeah no um i wish i did but um it's a very complex issue and i think what we're doing and a lot of other influencers are doing a lot of other people are doing are educating the masses and i think with social media it's the first time i'll ever say is an amazing thing because it's really connecting people to the truth and for so many years we've got our news and our media from the supermarkets from the news channels from the mainstream media that a lot of them benefit from these big food companies and let's not beat around the bush they do so they're going to push a certain fact of what's going to be healthy what to eat we're so educated on what food is and we just don't have we have no idea that the what's the word the extent of of how diverse food can be you know like i said there's 300 000 plants and when i was out in western australia we there was no strive to look at indigenous ingredients or how indigenous eat or local food like that it's like we move in we've got our crops we do our profit thing and that's what works for us but it's not good for the public and it's not good for the population and the more you can understand that the better and you can protect your family and and your future generations from from what's been going on for the last 150 years and just another one on that so you know a perfect example is in 1948, Procter & Gamble, they made Crisco, which was cotton seed oil, literally a waste product from cotton.

26:29And they gave the American Heart Association the equivalent of$17 million of money today to say that Crisco was heart healthy. And they funded a lot of studies to say it was heart healthy. So that's a really good example. And if that's happened then, why can't it be happening now so interesting but i want to go back on one point you touched because i get very interested down these rabbit holes of like what is the answer right so you mentioned sweet potatoes being something we could grow is far more nutritious than wheat say why is sweet potatoes such a good crop crop and should be part of everyone's diet that's a good question i mean for one it's a whole food it needs minimal processing you know if you just cook a sweet potato and mash it up it can bulk so many ultra processed foods and it's so much less messed with than wheat is and you've got to imagine surface area as well so when you spray a grain of wheat you know all those little grains are absorbing all that chemical whereas a sweet potato that's grown underground you know it's going to get a lot less chemicals on it it's such a it's such a more nutritious food as well than wheat you know wheat is quite neutral it's got trace amounts of omega six whereas sweet potato is a nutritional powerhouse you look at okinawans in japan one of the blue zones a lot of them live to over 100 years old not with the ultra processed food diet moving in now they're moving away from that sadly but sweet potato their purple sweet potato makes up a huge percentage of their diet along with oily fish so you just look at the real world examples and in western australia it can be grown you know that sweet potato they call it kumala and it can be grown over there.

28:15Yeah, it's interesting, right? Because you see a grass field of wheat and if you were just a natural human in caveman times, you wouldn't think there's anything you could eat there. It's so dry, like you can't chew it, I think. But if you pull a potato out of the ground, like you say, oil it and away you go. It's really simple, minimal processing. Absolutely, chuck it on a fire, whatever. They store well as well. We've talked a lot about chemicals then, But would you say there's nuance in this? So like a factory farmed sweet potato that's had chemical fertilizer, pesticides, would you say it's okay for people to eat that?

28:52I think it's going to be a much better choice to eat that than a chemically produced grain, simply because of the nutritional value and the fact it's grown underground. So it's protected. Of course, it's not an ideal scenario. The soil is still going to be dependent on these chemicals. and to tear down 150 year old system overnight is gonna you know it's gonna be a very difficult thing to do so moving towards crops that nourish us within the same model is a really great step in dual cropping and bringing back diversity naturally into the soil it's all great things that this knowledge is emerging of how to do it and through the power of the internet i believe people are connecting and working together to to solve it yeah i mean it's true what wild farm are doing and promoting regenerative agriculture is massive but they're commercializing it right they're putting regenerative oats on the supermarket shelves along with bread and other things so really promoting that actually if you want to support biodiversity these are the products for you which i think is fantastic because it you know arguably i mean i think that's one of the questions everyone has is like if we lived in an ideal world could we feed the country by moving everything regenerative so i ran the numbers through a very sophisticated ai program yeah and and yes and you know i asked it a million times would this work and yes if there was a redistribution of land there was a change in our diet there was an open-mindedness to it there was a change in what we grow we could farm and feed the nation with the land we currently have regeneratively yes it can be done but the system that's in place because of what's owned and how it's all set up already you know a lot of people are going to have to make some big changes and that's going to be very hard to shift but the simple answer is yes we could do it and it's basic arithmetic and we have computers that can run the maths and all that's up that's the thing right we need to be open to change i did a podcast on venison a few weeks ago of like we have one to two million too many deer in the country that is destroying forests and natural ecosystems because when the little oak tree shoots pop up from the ground from the acorns falling that's deer food they go and eat it all and it means we're not growing naturally new trees in the wildlife in what in the wild because of these deers so it's not good for our ecosystem that we've got too many deers so if we've got one to two million too many animals in our environment we could go and eat right really simple but we've got to be open-minded to make a conscious choice to eat and consume in a way that supports our natural environment right but absolutely like why do you think it's just the system we've built is so profit protectionist that we can't unstick from that and be open-minded in a new area yeah i believe i believe that's exactly the case i think we're educated in a system where we're told what food is we're told what good food is and when we have adverts and cartoons from an early age and farmers educated in a way of a system that works and you know to eat a rabbit or to eat a deer or to eat a kangaroo is you know disgusting because they're cute animals and that's that is it all works in in favor of this big food That's the simple answer, isn't it?

32:20So I think it massively comes down to what you tell a child is food. Will, you know, a child will consume that. Just on that as well, you know, you look at kangaroo population in Australia. It's a lot like our deer population. It's a huge pest. And there's massive red tape and laws on people having to have licenses to be able to consume them. I think in some states you can't actually consume them. They're protected. and I went to a degustation evening in Western Australia and it was amazing. It was all indigenous local ingredients. They did have a license to hunt kangaroo and serve kangaroo. But a lot of the meat that you can buy for consumption for kangaroo is actually shipped over from the East Coast.

33:04I don't know how backwards that system is when you've got kangaroos on your doorstep, but obviously someone profits from being able to say, I've got a trucking business and I'll do this haulage of it. And a lot of the time it's just someone getting involved and saying, I'm the middleman and I'm not going to let someone not profit from my sort of in the middle road of getting the product to the consumer. When if people were liberated enough, we'd realize that, you know, you can go to a farm down the road and get it straight from the farm and you cut out all these middlemen. And that's what the system is built on is to profit and all these little processes in between.

33:42A lot of people make money, but it detriments our health. Yeah. So as soon as you pick an apple from a tree or you dig up a potato from the ground, the nutrients in that food slowly start to decompose and die. And so by the time it gets to a shelf and it's been through all of that processing, there's nothing alive in that food. And that's what keeps our gut healthy. That's what keeps us healthy. That's what keeps us alive when we eat food that is alive. okay so there's just a little bit i want to touch on that because you said you know that vegetable then gets to the shelf and there's no nutrients left because it does degrade over time and if it's taken a month to get to your plate or your fridge there is going to be less nutrients in it but it's not completely dead veg and fruit in the supermarket is still healthy right yeah of course there's going to be nutrients still in that fruit but the fact of the matter is as soon as you pick that fruit the nutrients deplete that's obviously frozen berries are a lot better for you than fresh berries in the store and so that lesson should just be applied everywhere so the longer the journey that the food takes the less the nutrients and especially when once it goes under ultra refining and then companies have to add synthetic vitamins back in yeah to cover up what nutrients have been lost all in the name of someone profiting from it when we could just get it straight from the farm and eat very well well i think this would be one of the solutions to actually all of this right would be the more local we eat in theory it should be cheaper because it has to have less inputs less transport less producing but at the same time you know it's more nutritious it's fresher we're more connected to what grows and what's in season you know more seasonal fruits and veg have more nutrients in them typically so what do we think well what do you think's going on with the cost of food in this country like why is everything getting so much more expensive is there something happening in farming that is driving it like what's your theory well the fact of the matter is that these main commodity crops wheat rapeseed they're the ones that are heavily subsidized by the government.

35:51So that's why they're so cheap and nourishing crops that aren't subsidized are expensive. It's that simple. So I think the government really needs to shift, but obviously, like we said, they get a lot of health instruction that cereals are cheap and healthy, but it's not the case. And there are more nourishing crops out there that can work with the system. There's also so much red tape for small producers. You know, you look at Jeremy Clarkson's farm. He shone a massive light on the state of the red tape and what farmers have to go through just to be able to produce a crop and make money from it.

36:35And there's so much in the supply chain. We need a lot shorter supply chain. You know, you look at, there's a company called Riverford. They are brilliant. Organic, regenerative farm. And they deliver straight to your door organic seasonal veg. And that to me is the way forward because all you're paying for in that supply chain pretty much is a bloke in a van to deliver it to your door. Keeps money in our soil, keeps money in our economy. And it's the way forward, to be honest, especially with the demand of cities and people who can't get to these local areas. So you can actually buy local online and it's delivered to your door.

37:10That's a huge step in the right direction. That's a great tip. buy direct from your farm online get it delivered i like that because it is very interesting but you also touched on farming subsidies because in the whole inheritance tax not supporting farmers debate that you see online the government's rebutal to that is we're investing 2.7 billion into uk farms and agriculture in the next couple of years you know to support farmers to support working farming so what's going on with those subsidies surely that's a lot of help yeah i did a bit of research on that before i came in and a lot of that is to go towards replanting trees and solar and protecting the environment which is all great stuff um i'm not sure about the the solar is a nephew one but planting trees is definitely very good but i think if we can have a strive a bit like what andy cato is doing to get this diversity in the soil which will also feed us at the same time you know why can't we have a strive for that well because if you're funding farmers to plant trees you're not bringing down the cost of food right like so fine it helps the environment trees are great love trees yeah but it's not going to bring down the cost of food like how do we actually bring down the cost of food that's what everyone wants to know yeah exactly and that that's the way we start looking at what crops are cheap to grow with cheap inputs that actually nourish us and we build a system around nourishment and nutrition and health not profit people over profit and what you said earlier around let's nourish people not just feed people yeah is the key challenge we've got we all need more nutrients we're all nutrient deficient if we could do that through our food system by growing better quality crops great i mean i'd be out of a business selling vitamins but yeah you know by the by if everyone's healthier that's it it's fine i can always do something else it's not a problem yeah um and you know we just great attitude yeah you know we just need people to be healthier because we all love the nhs the nhs is crippled we all hate taxes but we're just being faced with more and more of them because costs are going up you know in the nhs and that's because we're putting a bigger and bigger burden on the nhs by being overweight have more metabolic chronic issues that cost loads of money yeah and then yeah they have to pay for it some way but if we fix the food you wouldn't have all that illness right absolutely that's a great uh point you've made and i've done a few posts now people always argue you know real food is so much more expensive and i i really do believe that when you prioritize these foods your health is so much stronger you're so much fitter you don't need all the supplements and pills and prescriptions and powders and medicines that we so heavily rely on the amount of people that just in your life, you know, they've got a doctor's appointment coming up or they're just casually popping paracetamol like it's normal.

40:11And all these little things that I haven't taken them for a year, you know, easily. And since I've been extremely strict with never eating ultra processed food. And that's, that's my experience that I've found. And I think there's definite science behind it as well. yeah i mean if we just live with good whole foods everyone gets healthier everyone loses weight everyone has less health issues and everyone wins but you said you know when people a lot of comments always said but eating healthy is so much more expensive like how do you do it how do you eat whole foods making it affordable yeah so like i said already i don't have to spend all this money on these supplements and powders and protein and stuff and i just keep it really simple i actually eat a lot less when you're fueled on the right things really nutrient dense foods your body just and your mind they just it can go and go and go and i actually welcome periods of no food because it just feels like i'm so well sustained that i don't need to constantly be binging on these ultra processed snacks and little nut snack bars here and there you know when i have a good proper piece of meat and a good bit of vegetable or some grass-fed yogurt or berries or something or some real honey from a farm my body feels nourished and I don't need to constantly be consuming you you consume a lot less that's what I feel as well so what did you have for breakfast I had a tin of sardines oh that is rogue come on you can't eat sardines for breakfast I don't do that all the time it's because I was in London I didn't want to use all my sister's food so I put a tin of sardines in the bag but it's a great way to get some omega-3s and protein it's a sustainable fish as well and they don't have as nearly as many toxic metals in them as tuna does because it doesn't accumulate in their system as much because they're a much smaller fish they can kind of get rid of it a lot quicker so what was it in tomato in sunflower oil or in brine or spring water spring water easy this one yeah i never go sunflower oil because of the omega-6 imbalance 200 to 1 wouldn't it be balanced with omega because you're getting omega-3 from the sardines and would that negate some of it yeah that's an interesting one i haven't actually looked into that as much but at the same time it's not cold pressed sunflower oil it's gone through a horrible process of neurotoxic petrochemical extraction so it's not a cold pressed oil it's still high in omega-6 and there's omega-6 fats in the fish as well nature already has that perfect balance so then you add in oil and it's driving up the imbalance even more so So spring water or brine for your tinned fish.

42:52A lot of the tomato sauces have a lot of added sugar and other things in them as well. So I always like to keep, just keep the fish as it is, coming from water and you can add your own salt, pepper, whatever spices you might want to do. Raw dog it. Yeah, raw dog it, lemon. You're a harder man than I am. I don't think I could do that. Lemon juice. Well, you're the man who eats beef heart. I did say I eat beef heart. I have eaten beef heart, but it's nice. I quite like it. But I guess everyone has different tastes. That's what I mean. It's about opening your mind to different foods. And when you realise it, we eat so little diversity.

43:27You know, like I said, we eat these sort of four main crops. Rice comes in as well. Rice is a great staple food. It's a neutral food and it feeds the world twice over. I mean, I think rice is perfectly fine, but it's more these sort of wheat, canola, corn and soy and sunflower. okay so you've been around the world a lot farmed in australia obviously you grew up in the uk on your travels to asia wherever like who's doing farming right is there any countries that are leading the way trying to change the system yeah so i think vietnam is a amazing example they have the lowest obesity rates in the world at just two percent what yeah wow and they live off bone broth beef broth you know their national dish is pho which is about a beef it's pho it's pho it's pronounced pho is it i've been saying it wrong with my whole life so you know they've already got that nutrient dense broth that they literally live off day to day they eat a lot of fresh herbs i remember i was invited into lunch with a farming family when i was on the road on a bike trip and they literally caught a fish from a local river and they'd made some sushi out of it with a little right fermented rice porridge and they'd get about 12 different herbs that they'd stack it all up and roll it up in and you just pop it in one bite and it was the most amazing explosion of flavor and i did a thing called the hajiang loop which is in an area in the mountainous northern region and i was asking about the farming because you know i was farming a lot in australia very interested and they were saying that they have techniques and things they do with different manures different mucks different bugs that they don't have to use sprays it's all organic and it's just having that knowledge of how to steward the land and like i said once we've been educated by these chemical systems on one way to farm that's where we've got a problem and in another in another hundred years if we don't keep this knowledge alive if we don't learn from cultures that don't use sprays and if we don't learn from what's already been written it's going to really destroy the planet destroy culture and destroy our health wow i didn't know that about vietnam Oh, makes sense though.

45:32Pho is so good. Pho, pho, pho, pho. Sorry, you've heard it here first. Pho, not pho. I've heard it here first. Yeah, that's really interesting. I think it's really good to see other cultures in the way it's doing it. The bit that annoys me, this is never going to change obviously, but how did they get it so that we have to call organic food organic and not the other way around that we should called sprayed food sprayed and normal food is just a lemon yeah without the spray you know what i mean like normally when you add something to it it's the thing that you add that then gets the name because you've changed it whereas they somehow flipped it in food yeah god knows where that came from yeah so that's a great question i haven't looked into that myself i will straight away after the podcast but it's marketing isn't it you know it's great it's marketing genius and i think we've we've all seen the effects of marketing over the last hundred years and i think that's why social media is so good you know because we get this sort of anti-marketing scenario where people are getting educated on what what real food is and then what to be careful of amazing so let's move on then to how do we actually fix things right we've talked a lot about the issues in farming the chemicals the ultra processed food but when it comes to changing uk farming like what's some of the biggest things people themselves could take away today and do that will make a difference so firstly always strive to buy local a demand for local produce is going to be huge if we get people buying from local farms again then we're going to create a whole economy around that and it's going to create jobs in the countryside it's going to give options for people who don't want to have to go to the city to earn money the only jobs in the countryside is to be a carer or to work you know long hours in a tractor on a farm and even then it's quite rare to get a job doing that but there's no local mills or bakeries or butchers or that artisanal market which is hugely profitable can start being much more available in the countryside i think that's a huge one so eat local and the local demand grows that's how we can fix it in a big way.

47:41I think to strive and the education to grow crops that nourish us, working with some of the best minds and get these crops flooded into our food system to help with inflammation, help with nutrition. And like I said earlier, building that system. And it's amazing, isn't it? The lowest input crops are often the healthiest and the most nutritious. You know, you look at sweet potato, look at camelina, they're much lower inputs and they don't depend on these chemicals as much. But again, that's not profitable. So just about educating the nation and changing our diets, being open-minded. And I think, I really think that can fix a lot of stuff.