"Being a prison officer really changed me."

Foreign.

0:00

Hello, welcome to Farmgate Leaders. I'm Finlow Costain, the editor of 8.9.com today I'm talking to Nicky Yoxall, a regenerative farmer based in the northeast of Scotland. Now, Nikki is someone that many of you listening will know or will have heard speaking at any number of events. In many ways she embodies the UK regen farming movement. She's young, passionate, outspoken, media savvy, first generation into farming, focused on the ecological biological impact of her system just as strongly as she is on her cattle management and the food that she's producing. Now in this program I want to find out more about where Nikki really comes from and what actually makes her tick. So welcome Nikki Yoxall.

0:05

Thank you, Finlow. I'm delighted just 10 days after my 40th birthday that I'm still being described as young. I'll take that. That's wonderful. Thank you.

0:46

Do you know what? Young farmer seems to go anywhere up to 60 at times? I think so. Now as I said, you are a first generation farmer. Could you tell us about your entry into farming and you know, how you got there and where you are now?

0:54

Yeah, absolutely. I do feel like sometimes I've told this story a few times. So I'm going to apologize if anyone's heard me talk about this before. But you're right, I'm new entrant, as is my husband. Someone asked me the other day, so where did the farming come from then? Like how on earth do you get to that point if neither of you have come from that as a background? And yeah, I grew up in rural Shropshire, very rural upbringing. We were horsey folk, very connected to the, to the landscape, connected to rural life and to the countryside. But the farming came from when I managed to essentially blag my way into being head of department at an agricultural college. You know, that's not disparaging against the college. I'm sure they decided that I was the right applicant at the time and I loved that job. It was probably one of the best jobs I've had in education. But at that college we had an on site farm that was run by a wonderful farm manager who gets very embarrassed when I talk about him. And he really opened my eyes to the great thing that is milk from grass and grass based dairying systems. And we had a flock of sheep as well on, on the farm, on the estate, which I was less enamored with, but absolutely loved the cows, loved spending time at the farm, would make any excuse I could to go and work down There and to be down there and to be with the farm team thought they did a great job and yeah, just really, just really enjoyed that kind of part of, of the education system there and that part of the curriculum. And when we moved to Scotland because I got a promoted post in another college, we realized that we really missed it and we managed to buy a small holding up here and that then having missed cows gave us an opportunity to think about land management and how to best manage that land. And my husband actually went on a holistic management kind of and a holistic grazing course with Rob Havard who had come up to Scotland as part of a Soil association funded event. And James suddenly realized, having never really been that interested in livestock, that cows were the answer. And so off we went to buy some heifers and yeah, we started with two heifers and we're now managing just over 2,000 hectares. So it's a nice, it's a nice journey.

1:08

Just talk to me a little bit about, about small holding because small holding can, you know, mean many different things to different people. And of course, you know, when you mention Rob Havard, that's Rob from Phepps and Angus, isn't it? So he's a, he's a breeder. But yeah, just tell me about small holdings.

3:11

Yeah, so the small holding that we bought was actually like an old mill and it was beautiful actually because it really kind of reflected back how much in the uplands. So this was on the River Deveren in Aberdeenshire, just not far from the market town of Huntly. These mills were dotted all over the place. So we bought what was, had been converted and renovated by the previous owner, a mill that had been turned into a house, little, a very little house that had with it 18 acres of land. And it was quite kind of odd because it was not a croft, like it hadn't ever been a croft because they don't really exist in Aberdeenshire. You get the crofting counties of the Highlands and Murray and on the west coast and the Islands, but not in Aberdeenshire. So this is very much a small holding. So 18 acres, about 10 acres of that was beautiful species, rich meadow that had never really been manage, managed to be a beautiful species, rich meadow, but just through kind of being left alone, that's what had happened. And then the previous owner had put in quite a lot of native broadleaf woodland. So we had this kind of meadow and then woodland and then slopey steep bog down to the river. And so there wasn't really a huge amount that we could really do with it. The fencing was non existent in most of it. And so yeah, that's, that's kind of. We, you know, we did the normal thing, we got ducks, we had chickens, we had a polytunnel, we did veg growing, put in some fruit trees, but it was never really quite enough. And that kind of small holding, self sufficiency approach wasn't, didn't quite tick the boxes for me. It wasn't quite delivering what I wanted to. And I guess I'm quite an ambitious person and so I've always thought about scale and influence as being something that I wanted to have. And so that kind of drove us, I guess, to think about how to grow what started off as two heifers on a small holding into a grazier business and then, you know, a much, a much bigger farming business that now employs one full time equivalent of staff.

3:24

I think we're going to talk about that ambitious aspect of you a bit later because that's something that I think a lot of people, particularly within farming would, would demure from admitting. But that ambition is clearly, you know, important to you and it's, and it's taken you a very long way. So let's talk about that in a little while. But just going back around that small holding bit. When I first knew you, you were moving your grazing around different places and instead of sort of paying people rent, you were almost paying the ren improving the land.

5:12

Yeah, that's right. So you know, you can only have a small number of animals on a small amount of land. You know, you can improve your grazing to increase your carrying capacity but there's always going to be a limit. Right. So what happened was we were kind of thinking we'd like more cattle. We reckon we could have had, you know, a few more than we had on the ground that we were on. But we were moving to begin with. Our two he every day using electric vents and mobile water systems, people would have a look over the fence and be like, oh, you know, what are you up to? This is interesting. And our neighbor had actually been on the same course as James and to learn about holistic grazing, but hadn't really done anything with it. And he was like, oh, you guys are really cracking on. Why don't you come and graze your cattle on my hill? The fencing's rubbish. My sheep get out if I put them on there. But I'd love to have the cows on there to see what they do, you know. And fast forward seven years and he now has no sheep. And has his own pedigree Angus herd. So, you know, I feel like we've had an impact there. But yeah, we were able then to work with him to demonstrate the benefit that cattle could, could have on the landscape. We then worked with our neighbor, the other side, and then we were invited by lots of people to go and for them. And we started off by kind of saying yes to lots of opportunities. And then I suddenly realized, hang on, this isn't going to make us money. We are spending more time driving around the countryside to get to where these places would be to go and visit them or to think about how we would plan the grazing. And then, you know, daily Moves was definitely like the, the core of our approach. And so that doesn't work if you're driving 40 minutes to spend 10 minutes with cows to move them, you know, so we, so I very quickly was like, this has to become a business and it has to make sense. You know, I was in a well paid senior management job at the time. But ultimately the idea was that this business had to, had to fund itself. I didn't want to subsidize our, our grazing operation. So, yeah, we really started to look more carefully at the numbers and how we could kind of value the value proposition of what we did and how we worked with people to do that. And so, yeah, we were able to kind of really review the business of being a grazier. And we took, we took an opportunity, actually. We were given an opportunity to, to become a tenant and we did that. And it lasted for a very short period because I did not enjoy it. I did not like the power imbalance of the tenancy and I didn't really like the farm that we were given the opportunity on. So we, we came away from that and then worked with various rewilding companies to deliver grazing for them. And so it really all was stepping stones to get us where we are today now operating in partnership with an estate, as I said, across 2,000 hectares.

5:41

So tell me about that because obviously that's, that's lots about how you started. So let's fast forward to the now grazing across that great landscape that you've just mentioned. How many cattle do you have now?

8:07

We're really understocked and we're, we're growing the herd. So we've got, we're running about just over 100 head here. But we are, you know, very much understocked. When I say 2000 hectares, the vast majority, 1500 of that is hill, like Heather grouse, Moreland hill. So we, it's not, you know, 2,000 hectares of prime kind of lowland good grass growing. It's, it's a very mixed bag. But our whole approach is that you, you know, you kind of take what you're given in terms of landscape and then you, you choose the right cattle for that and you, you make selection in your cattle to make sure that they can deliver all the things we need them to do off the naturally occurring forage base here and we can tweak our management to improve that. But ultimately it's about unimproved ground from an agricultural sense, delivering the outcomes that we're looking to achieve. So yeah, the, you know, it's, we are, as I said, we're understocked. We're aiming in our business plan to get to 120 breeding cows over the next four years. So we're one year into the partnership, we've got four years left on the initial five year kind of planning cycle and we're looking to, as I said, get to 120 breeding cows and then selling 10 month old sores into a pasture for life certified supply chain so that we are able to maintain that kind of output and support cash flow as well as finishing our own stock, a handful of our own stock through selling beef through box schemes etc, which I love doing but doesn't necessarily make sense if you really take into account the costs of being a retailer as opposed to a farmer. And then we also are selling breeding stock as well, kind of diversifying our income through not different types of business but different outputs within the same business.

8:16

I want to ask you about what a real farmer is because obviously you started with just a couple of cattle and now you obviously sort of working up to 120 or so. But this is something that I hear quite a lot from those sort of more traditionally sort of second, third, 18th generation farmers where if you're not doing it full time, if you don't have vast yield and lots and lots of animals, then you're not a real farmer and you're somebody who' still works as a researcher. You would pasture for life at the same time as doing the farming work that you're doing. I presume that you've always thought of yourself since you started working on the land as a real farmer. And I just wonder if you could talk to me a little bit about that, what you think a real farmer is.

9:49

Yeah, I didn't think that I was a farmer and it took me quite a long time to really kind of own that, that name, I suppose. And I would. You know, we called ourselves graziers for a long time because we didn't really think of ourselves as farmers. And so, yeah, there is something about kind of identity and how you, how you choose to determine or describe the work that you do or how you identify in the role that you are. Because it's not like you're working for someone else who gives you a job description and a person spec and says, here you are, farm manager. You know, so it's, it's much broader than that and you have to kind of work that out yourself. I don't know. I think, and we're going to talk about this maybe as we go through, but this thing about what a real farmer is and who gets to call themselves that often is owned. You know, there's, there's issues around kind of patriarchy there and, and systems of put people in their place and keeping people in their place, which I don't necessarily ascribe to. So I think there is something about, you know, this kind of stuff about how many animals have you got, how many hectares are you managing? All of that, it just is this, like, it's a off, essentially, isn't it, between kind of men who want to stand at a urinal and compare each other's. You know, it's just. It's a big dish. Yeah, it's big. It's. Yeah. And I'm not up for that. You know, I just think it's a really bizarre way of thinking about. We're not talking about, you know, like, how effect, how, how profitable is your business, how, how much are you contributing to the local economy. It's about how many animals have you got and how many hectares are you managing. And you're not taken seriously unless. Unless you're able to put big numbers to that. What I found fascinating, so in the uk, well, in the, in gb, particularly in England and Scotland, there's a real sense of bigger is better, more animals. You're only relevant if you can talk at scale. I'm very lucky to be invited often to Northern Ireland and also the Republic of Ireland to talk about what we do and to talk about our journey. And often they go, God, you're not, you're not relevant to us. Your scale's too big. And I have to remind them that we started with two heifers on 18 acres and everything was very part time. So it really depends on the context, right, of who your audience is and who you're speaking to as to whether you're seen as relevant. And actually, all I'M really interested in is, does my business partner think that we're relevant? And are my. My husband and I happy with what we're doing? And if it's working for us, don't really care too much about what other people are worried about.

10:32

We're going to come to the Cock off later because, as you mentioned, it is the International Year of the Woman Farmer and we're going to talk a little bit about that, just sort of introduce it as a topic and about, you know, the role of whether there are differences between the way that women approach farming and the way that men approach farming. And I think you've implied already that there might be something of a difference, certainly for some. But let's come on to that sort of later in the program. I'd like to just sort of go back a little bit again to that sort of the origin story of Nikki Yoxel. Where did you. So we're going back to your childhood. Tell me about your family and where you grew up in the world.

12:42

Yeah, so like on the. Basically, I grew up on the. On the border of a sort of Worcestershire, Shropshire, but think of myself as a Shropshire lass. I spent most of my time at school, for example, in Shrewsbury, although I used to call it Shrewsbury when I was a kid, and I now call it Shrewsbury, which probably says more than anything about how my. Maybe how my politics has changed.

13:17

So one must be posh. One's posh and one isn't Shrewsbury's posh.

13:34

Yeah, Shrewsbury's posh. Shrewsbury. Less I get, you know, my family, you know, my parents, I come from. My. My dad was in the Marines for, you know, decades. My mum. And he was quite a bit older than my mum. And my mum was a creative. She worked in the creative industries and. And then they ended up running their own marketing and advertising agency when I was a kid. And as I said, we were horsey. You know, like, my mum loved horses. I had ponies growing up, could ride very, very young. Loved our horses and kind of spending time with them and competing. I competed at a relatively high level for my age into my early 20s and worked with a lot of very successful competitive riders as a groom sort of part time and. And had great exposure and great opportunities thanks to, you know, to good family friends and colleagues and people that we were working with. So, yeah, had a really, you know, very privileged, great childhood and my dad died when I was 12, so that, you know, really threw a spanner in the works. I was incredibly close to my dad and as an only, you Know, being brought up as an only child. I do have a half sister, but she's a lot older than me, so she didn't really sort of, she wasn't around when I was a kid, so I was brought up very much as an only and when dad died that obviously, you know, really changed the trajectory of my teens. I also was diagnosed with ADHD when I was little and so there's always been kind of challenges around managing my behavior, which my dad was very good at, probably due to his ex military background, very good at boundaries, my mum less so. And I think that probably made things more difficult during my teens. But I've always been, you know, by dint of being privately educated and having all of that privilege of middle class, you know, good income, supportive, caring, loving family, had the privilege that comes with that and been able to believe in myself and, and make choices and have a go at stuff. And I think when you sprinkle in a bit of ADHD impulsivity that, you know, is, is extended further. And so that probably leads to things like ambition, becoming a farmer when you've got kind of, you know, no right to be or whatever. So I think there is something there about that useful and lucky mix of privilege and, and impulsivity that's probably helped me to get to where I want to be. And you know, what I do now is like my third career and I am only 40. You know, I started off very early on in the prison service and that didn't last long because it's incredibly hard. And then moved into teaching and education and loved that, but then actually realized that it kind of is, you know, it's pretty, you just sort of do the same things every year and it's this ongoing cycle of improvement that just never really improves. And you don't necessarily get to see long term impact of what you're doing. And so for me, land management and using farming as a route to that had much more impact and was more interesting.

13:38

You dropped prisons in there and I'm gonna have to come back to that in a moment. But let me start off with ADHD if I may, because the way that you framed that suggested almost that it's a superpower. And certainly, you know, when I, you know, I've known you for quite a long time and I've never sort of thought of you as somebody with adhd. I've always thought of you as somebody who is busy and passionate. But going back to, you know, sort of being 12 and having that sort of a label was the label A useful thing. And how did being labeled affect you as a teen teenager?

16:13

I don't know if it was useful in that it then allowed me to get medicated and I wouldn't have got through my GCSES without medication. So, yeah, the label helped because I got medicated.

16:46

But what was life like before you were medicated?

16:55

Just. I guess I was impulsive. It was difficult for teachers to kind of manage me because I was a private school in tiny class sizes. It was way easier. I do not know how I would have coped if I've been. If I'd been kind of pushed into the state system. I mean, there are kind of, you know, there's a balance there, because in the state system there is. There has been. When I was at school, you like, really well developed and kind of arranged support mechanisms for kids that had diagnoses of whether it's dyslexia, dyspraxia, adhd, autism, you know, various other neurodivergent kind of challenges, I guess, or challenges around being neurodivergent. So I think at that time, the level of support would have been quite different. When you go, from my experience of private school, you know, you kind of. If you're bright enough and you're able to get in, or you pay enough and you're able to get in that, you know, you're just kind of expected to get on with it. And there wasn't really that much additional support. There was no, like, asl, additional support, learning needs or anything like that. That didn't really exist. There was a woman that you could go to, like my dyslexic friend would go and meet this woman once a week and get a bit of extra help with how to do note taking. But it wasn't particularly effective. We were kind of just expected to get on with it. But when you're in a class of 10 or 12, you know, you've kind of.

16:59

Of.

18:11

You should be able to really, like, you get a lot of attention from the teachers. It's a lot of support. So in terms of the. The label, you know, helped me get medication that was supportive. It gave me access to a psychiatrist who is able to kind of maintain focus on my progress through my teens. And when you combine that with the additional mental health challenges that were very serious for me as a teenager, you know, it was good to have that level of support from the NHS and from child and adolescent mental health services. But in terms of kind of the label and me being an ADHD person, I kept it quite Quiet. I didn't really go around saying that to people. But it gave you employers, but it

18:11

did give you access to support.

18:48

It gave me access to services that as soon as you hit 18 ended. So yeah, they were good, they were good services for children, but as soon as you become an adult, you're kind of just expected to get on with it. And I basically had to go cold turkey with my medication because I just wasn't able to access that post 18. And I would, I would say, you know, I have lots of friends now in their 30s and 40s being diagnosed with ADHD. I cannot imagine how hard it would be to go through all of your life to that point without a diagnosis and without understanding why you weren't fitting in and why things were hard for you and why you weren't able to do all the things that people expected you to be able to do. Having that diagnosis and as a result, even if it was light touch, having strategies and support for the development of strategies as a child made a significant difference. You know, it's that one degree trajectory change that can have a significant difference between somebody who gets that input at 12 and somebody who doesn't but still has the same cognitive challenges. So yeah, it definitely helped, but I wouldn't be able to say oh, because I got X, Y and Z. Yeah, necessarily.

18:49

Bearing in mind all those things that you've talked about, the adhd, the getting psychiatric help around that, your father dying, your relationship with your mother, all kinds of other things. And just being a teenager, looking back on that period, would you say that you were a good kid or a bad kid?

19:54

I was horrendous. Oh my God, I was awful finlow. And actually I, you know, there are, there's a significant amount of trauma in my teens that I don't, I don't remember most of my teens, which I've talked about before, you know, it's not an issue, but it's not an area I sort of dwell on psychologically. It's quite challenging for me, so I sort of park it and I, I often think of my life kind of up until 12 and then kind of 22 onwards. There's a 10 year gap in the middle there, but I just write off and yeah, I mean, you know, no one's, I don't really believe that people are bad people inherently. I was a good person, but I just was probably pretty out of control and angry and upset and hurting and

20:10

what did that look like in terms of school or home life?

20:44

Well, I hardly went and you know, I definitely didn't fulfill my potential in terms of exam results and stuff like that and you know, got in relationships, breaking down with friends and with family and yeah, it was just, you know, I was a difficult, I was a difficult, hurting, misunderstood person. And I think that, that many, many kids are and kids that go through the trauma of losing a parent particularly. So I think, yeah, it's like I say there's a 10 year gap probably there that I just kind of park and move on from.

20:48

And so parking is. Let's move on to prison. Because it often seems, it often seems to me that, you know, sometimes it's the really good kids, sometimes it's the really bad. K want to go into the police or prison service. What was it that attracted you to the prison service and what did you find when you got there? What didn't you like about it?

21:17

Yeah, well, when I'd left school I did my A levels and I'd kind of scraped through and with much better results than I think anybody. I mean, I think my school almost were like, should we even let her back to do A levels? But I, you know, they took me back and I basically did A levels that I enjoyed rather than things that necessarily were going to lead me to a career that I particularly wanted. So that was good that I was able to do that, that. And I got into a good university but I decided to take a gap here. I was like, I just need a break for a year and I, I moved out from home, got a little flat and I got an admin job for a charity that worked with prisoners families. So often these are kind of, you know, forgotten about people. Someone goes off to prison and there's like a family member left behind who's like never experienced any sort of interaction with the prison service and so has no idea about how any of this works. You know, they might have seen it on telly, but no real clue about what happens. And so it was a really rewarding job. Even just as an admin assistant. I would go out into prisons and meet with people, meet with prisoners, go and meet with families, talk to them, help them through that process. And I just really, really enjoyed it. And I decided that I really enjoyed working. I liked financial independence and I said to my mom, I'm going to actually not go to university. You know, I'm going to reject the offer that I had. I don't want to go and do that. I don't want to go and live with a bunch of students. I'm really enjoying, you know, making Having a, having a job and thinking about my career. And she said, well, you know, it's a really good bit of advice, advice, get a job with a pension and think about career development. And I saw that the prison service were recruiting and I thought, well, I know a bit about the prison service. I've worked in the charitable sector in, as a, in a kind of alignment with it. So I applied and I got offered. You have to go through like a selection criteria that takes quite a few months and then you have to go for residential training. Not really enough, but you do get trained. And off I went to work at HMP Stafford and I really enjoyed it because I'd never like interacted with a lot of the sort of types of people that I was experiencing. You know, I've talked about my privileged middle class upbringing and then here I was working on the landings and it was fascinating and I really loved it. And I guess what I really loved was that it was people. Weirdly, people don't believe me when I say that I'm not an extrovert because I'm really not. Being with people is exhausting for me. But I also really enjoy it and I just found it fascinating talking to these people and finding out more about their lives and you know, why they ended up being there. And there were definitely parallels right between my life and some of those prisoners where there was a turning point point at 18 where they went one way and I went the other way. You know, ADHD kids who'd experienced trauma and these lads ended up, you know, in prison and I ended up being a prison officer. It was challenging, did it for two years, found it very hard because, you know, I'm not good, I'm quite an empath. I'm not very good at letting, at forgetting things and I would be working with very troubled men who were wanting to end their lives, who were self harming consistently, daily, multiple times a day. And I would then go home at the end of the day and have to be normal. And that was it. Almost impossible for me thinking just that, you know, reliving the challenges that these guys were going through and my experience of, you know, interface with that was, was hard. So I decided to leave and went and did summer working for a kids adventure company and that's where I met my husband and then ended up working in education. I think teaching is something I'm really good at and I am just going to be, you know, quite blunt and say that I think I'm a good teacher.

21:35

I think there are many bad Teachers. It's great to have some good ones.

24:50

Yeah, I loved it. I really, really loved it. I, I ended up going again. It was like going in. I got an admin job working for a company that helped kids that wanted to join the armed forces. And because I'd worked in the prison service, you know, in the uniform, uniform services, they were like, oh, yeah, that's great. And my, my dad had been the Marines at that point. My husband was looking to join the Marines. So there'd been this kind of like link with the forces and, and with, with the uniform services that I was like, I could kind of speak to. I suppose I understood the language, I understood the lifestyle while. And I went there as an admin assistant and ended up teaching maths and English to kids that had failed their GCSES but were coming on training programs. I also ended up doing my like, personal trainer qualifications so that I could, I could teach them more than just math and English. I was also able to kind of take them for their. They were doing like physical ed kind of once a day. So we would. Because we would help them get fit enough for their selection to go into the forces. So I was doing that and I just, I just really loved it, I really enjoyed it and, and, and just loved teaching. Just found it so rewarding and then ended up getting a job at a college teaching just maths and English functional skills. So it's kind of a more practical application of maths in English for those kids that had failed their GCSEs or hadn't taken them. And I again, just loved it. And I was working predominantly with groups of lads who were construction students. We did have some girls who were coming on the program, but it was predominantly male and yeah, construction and kind of things like automotive, that sort of thing, teaching them. And then I ended up kind of teaching teachers. So I became an advanced practitioner and then teaching how to other lecturers, how to be lecturers or how to improve their teaching. And then all of that ended up getting me into. And I was really enjoying like online learning and using technology in my classroom. So I ended up getting a job as like a learning technology manager at a college. And then I jumped from that into this head of department role at the agricultural college. And at that point I was then teaching degree level student, you know, alongside this I was doing my teaching qualifications and I was doing my degree. So I have a degree in education and training studies. And then I went to work as this head of department and just did like a level 5 leadership. Leadership and management course and started thinking about did I want to do a master's program? And then that's what, once I moved up to Scotland, led me to do my master's in sustainable Food and Natural Resources and then ultimately a PhD which I've just submitted.

24:53

Was there something about your upbringing? Do you think that you know all of these various different things you've talked about? You talk about your private, private school, your challenges in your teenage years, good prison, then education. Was there something that inevitably led you, do you think, to the world that you're inhabiting now?

27:13

Yeah, food for sure. Like, I was a vegetarian for a bit because I couldn't find meat that I wanted to eat because I just couldn't find quality meat and I couldn't find meat with provenance. And so. And actually James and I both, you know, for a while were kind of pretty much veggie and we don't eat huge amounts of meat. I don't eat pork, I don't eat chicken. And unless I'm actually intolerant to pork, but I don't eat chicken unless I know exactly the farm that it's come from. I'm really, really picky. And so, yeah, food was the gateway and you know, we talked, touched on my childhood. But one, one feature of my childhood was that food, food was there, always, ever present. You know, I'm kind of surprised I didn't end up becoming a chef or something because my parents were both brilliant cooks. My dad was semi retired when I was little and he used to cook dinner for me every night. And you know, that was the thing that we would do together. And he was a great cook. My mom is a brilliant cook. You know, really homely, kind of comforting home cooking, but just really, really good quality. And both of them felt it was important to eat out and to experience places because of the food links. So if we went on holiday, you know, food was a big part of that. I would never be expected to eat from the children's menu. I was always expected to kind of choose a smaller portion from the, the, from the kind of adults menu. And so this idea of like food and food quality really drove James and I to think about how that related to landscape and how we could produce the best quality food we could. Growing our own veg, having our own chickens, having eggs, all that sort of stuff and then producing meat. And you know, you are, you kind of, you are what you eat, eats and thinking about that process of soil to plant to animal, to, to human and, and that for me is is just central to everything that we do.

27:30

Presumably that that's about taste and about nutrition and about the sort of construction of a meal as well.

29:08

Yeah, it's about taste, it's about nutrition, but it's about connection. And you know, the thing that all of us as humans have in common is food. And actually when I. It's a weird link back to that I've not really thought about when I worked in the prison service. When you go to work every day and you're working on the landings, you get given a duty like your job. So Stafford, the different radio call sign is linked to what you're doing that day. And I used to really like it when I was in charge of the cleaning party because I. I got to be the one that oversaw the meals. So I think I'm probably a bit of a feeder. So it was probably. I quite liked the fact that I would make sure that all the food, you know, that the prisoners brought the food in from the kitchens and that they were able to lay it out and that people were being fed. And that kind of part of the day, this kind of every. All of us at some point in the day are eating and at some point we kind of, ideally we stop and we think about that. Quite often I'm at my desk, you know, just like shoving toast down my neck. But really food is about a pause, it's about a connection not only with each other but also from where that food has come from. So for me, that's what it's about. It's ultimately about engagement and connection and not just living life with it passing you by. It's more than that. It's a food culture, I suppose.

29:13

So you've got that sort of food culture that you're growing up with and that you're, you know, you're very much back to now and that, that sort of part of your world that farming is about, it's about ecology, it's about food production, but it's really about paying attention to the taste and the quality of the food that's being produced there. Just sort of thinking again about your childhood. You were talk about the way in which your mother was in advertising. I think when your dad came out of the marines, he was also working in. They were both working in advertising, weren't they? And I just wonder, you know, you've been really very successful at promoting and marketing essentially advertising, regenerative agriculture principles, a passion for regen. Is that something that you picked up as a kid? Did you sort of pick it up by osmosis, or is that stuff that you've just kind of learned because it's been necessary?

30:18

I think the only thing I probably picked up by osmosis was that it's necessary. Branding, marketing, this idea of how you portray things externally is key and is important and has a function. And maybe that's probably why I quite like teaching, because teaching really is about. It's a bit like acting. You know, you kind of get on a stage at the front of class and you act for an hour to deliver your class and then you kind of take the mask off, then you're yourself again. So. And I think maybe all of what I do in this kind of outward Persona of who I am, you know, I've probably always, and this is going maybe a bit deep, but always struggled with this idea of authenticity, the value. The version of me that James, my husband, gets is probably not, you know, this is the same for all of us. The version of me he gets isn't necessarily the same version everyone else gets. And I suppose there's something about that comes from this presentation of who I am in the world and thinking about how. Who I represent and what I represent as a brand, whether that's agriculture, whether it's regenerative agriculture, whether it's pasture for life, whether it's nature, Scotch, you know, all the different organizations and affiliations I have, I'm very conscious that I am presenting that at that point in time, whilst also trying to ensure that my views and that there's a. There's a truth that is also expressed. So I would never want to just be like a spokesperson for a particular viewpoint, but that there's an authenticity in who I am and who my. Where my core beliefs sit. But how that is presented through the lens of regenerative agriculture, pasture for life, my own farming business, et cetera. So, yeah, I guess it's present, but I wouldn't say that, like, oh, I've learned how to do good marketing. There's definitely aspects of, like, marketing and sales and advertising that, you know, you need specialist training to be able to do well, which I don't have.

31:03

Yeah. And I guess that's the difference, isn't it, between marketing and just promoting in general? Being somebody who is good at communicating is quite different from the technical elements of marketing or, you know, the details of advertising and how that works and how that gets sold, et cetera, et cetera. But. But clearly you're somebody who is very good at promoting the work that they do. And one of the things that I've always been struck by Nicky with you is that you come across as being incredibly authentic. So you talk about yourself. I mean, everybody is different within their own family. You know, you take off your kind of your mask of professionalism, you sit down, you read the kids story or whatever else it is that you're doing. It's a different world. But at the same time, what I find quite difficult is going out and presenting. I have to think quite a lot before I, you know, before I do a podcast, before I go and do you seem very authentic that the person you are off stage is the person you are on stage. You can get up and talk about these things at the drop of a hat. And that's a remarkable skill to have.

32:44

Yeah, that's the ADHD superpower coming through. Right. Like, one of the things I love about ADHD is the speed at which I can think. And that is a quite a challenge between my husband and I because he doesn't think as quickly as I do. So I identify a problem, talk about the problem, solve the problem, and move on, on before he's even processed the problem that I've identified. Because we just have very different, you know, speeds at which we operate. And so I think there is, for me, there is that thing about, you know, and I, I've done a couple of podcasts with you, Finlo, which I always enjoy doing, and a number of other podcasts where people send me scripts or they send me notes and I'm like, yeah, whatever, like, let's just do it on the day. Because however much I prepare for it, it's probably not going to be what it is. You know, it's, it's my response at that time. So I guess for me it's learning, learning how to manage my responses so that they are not reactive but responsive. And, and that's a kind of ADHD strategy that I've had to put in place over time. But yeah, being able to think quickly and respond is, is probably a bit, you know, if we, if we have superpowers, that's probably mine.

33:43

Yeah, I'm just wondering how I can catch it. I feel like there's something that I need there if I can find some ADHD in a vial. Because so much energies is it sort of irregular roads between 40 and 50, I think. And I could do with a bit more of that at this point. Let's move on to regen as a concept because we've talked about regen quite a lot and I wonder if you could talk to me a Little bit about what you. I mean this could go on for an hour or a day, but let's just for a moment or two talk about what regen is to you and also how it fits within this sort of, this suite of nature friendly farming sort of stuff. So you've got regen, nature friendly farming, organic, you've got agroecology. Regen at the moment kind of, you know, has the zeitgeist and people are talking about it. But what is it particularly for you?

34:42

Yeah, so I would say like regenerative agriculture isn't just what I think of it. It's a set of principles, five principles plus context specificity, which are fairly well established and well understood, you know, relating to minimizing soil disturbance, keeping soils covered, maintaining living roots in the soil, increasing above and below ground biodiversity, and integrating livestock into the system. And then you underpin that with kind of context dependency. As I said, just to be blunt, I get really sick and tired of people going, oh well, no one really knows what regen is and it depends who you are. No, we know exactly what regenerative agriculture is. It's the thing I've just described. It's a set of principles to which we apply tools and context levers to deliver outcomes that meet those principles or move us towards the direction of those, those principles. So the complexity is how you deliver it, not what it is. So for me, you know, and this is something I cover, there's a chapter of my PhD that looks at this. I've worked with other researchers on various programs about how we define and understand regenerative agriculture. And it for me is the only way really to do agriculture. You know, it's, it kind of absolutely makes sense. The principles I totally support and everything that we do kind of aligns us with those principles. Principles, regardless of the scale, whether it's, you know, within, around a gateway or whether it's across the landscape. It's critical, I think, to be quite, for those of us that want to demonstrate that is that we actually stand up and say, no, we know what it is, we've got a definition, this is what it looks like. And yes, how it presents on each farm is going to be context dependent and you're going to apply different tools in different ways depending on whether you know, your financial position, your knowledge and skills position, your social structures around the farm, business and who gets to make decisions and who gets to have a veto. So there's lots of different complications that can change the way you deliver it. But ultimately it is a set of five principles plus that context dependency.

35:29

I'm interested as well in the way in which I think that, you know, regenerative agriculture has been talked about prolifically in the UK over the last three years in a way that that other sort of things that might sit on the same shelf like nature friendly farming and so on, they haven't been talked about in quite the same way. It's become very, very prevalent within the farming context. Lots of people having different attitudes to it, some people who you know, are completely committed to it as you are and some people who almost for the sake of it are reactive against it. And so I just wonder, you know, if you could reflect on how you talk because obviously you talk to an awful lot of farmers who already bought into the principles of regen and helping them to better understand it and get that context specific element. How do you talk about regen to farmers who are more skeptical, more mainstream?

37:20

I used to feel like I had a responsibility to win them over and as I'm advancing in my years I'm caring less about that because ultimately that, you know, that's their business. My business delivers a profit. It allows us to have one full time person employed. So we've gone from nothing to one full time person being employed. We've had a clear investment strategy, we've got a clear exit plan that aligns with our goals personally as a couple, you know, for Mike, for me and James, into the future and we have strong working relationships with our business partner. All of that is enabled because we, we embrace and we work through the prism, if you like, or through the lens of regenerative agriculture. If somebody else doesn't want to do that and they are meeting all their personal goals, crack on. If they're happy, if they've got what they wanted to achieve, if their business is delivering what they want it to deliver, love that for them. If they have an interest in changing what they're doing because they're not meeting their goals and they're not happy and they're not having a good time and their business isn't delivering their what they want it to, then let's have that conversation. But you know, if you're going to get obsessive about trying to win everybody over, it's never going to happen. There are some people who are just difficult for the sake of it and that's fine. Yeah. And like let them, let them be like that. That's, you know, that's not my issue, it's not my concern. If people want to learn more about how We've managed to achieve what we have. If people want to learn more about changing their system or setting goals and moving towards their those goals and finding different ways to do that that align with their particular own motivations, I have a very reasonable consultancy rate and I will happily support them on that journey. But you know, it's not really my job to force people to move down a particular route if they don't want to.

38:04

I'm fascinated, just sort of going back, moving away from Regen again because I think lots of people will, listening, will have heard you talking about Regen. So let's talk about some of the other stuff that people don't necessarily know about you. And I'm fascinated by, by the childhood that you had, which, which in many ways kind of sounds a bit ab fab and you know, it's sort of right of center, horsey household advertising, all that sort of stuff. And yet in many ways, if I didn't know any of that about you, I'd think that you were a massive lefty. So what's happened?

39:41

Yeah, yeah, what's happened? I don't know. I've been reflecting on this a little bit and it's interesting because I think, I think that being exposed to the prison service really kind of changed my politics because I probably was of the opinion, kind of a fairly standard right of center opinion that ultimately we all make our own destiny and if we work, if we just work hard enough, then things then will achieve, you know, we can achieve whatever we want to achieve. And then working the prison service, I suddenly realized that that isn't true and that actually people's experiences of life and decisions that they make are as a result of a combination of factors and circumstances. They find that themselves in many of which are systemic and are outside of their control. And so when you find yourself in a position where, I don't know, let's think for example, that you know, huge numbers of people in, in prison service have mental health issues and are care experienced. So we're in foster care or you know, children's homes. As children that is outside of their control. As children, you know, they, they didn't choose that. Those are not things that they've decided to do. And many of them will have grown up in poverty as well. So all of those things are outside of their control. And this idea that if they just work a bit harder that they'll be able to overcome all of these barriers to success is, is kind of nonsense because they're operating or starting from a place so much Further behind in terms of opportunity than for example, I was as a, you know, as we've said, well educated middle class white person. So I think it really opened my eyes to systemic inequality and the impact that has on people in the life decisions that they then make take and how so much of that really is dependent on the circumstances you find yourself in. And you know, if you find yourself in a circumstance of trauma and loss as a middle class white person, you're going to be much better able to cope with it than if you are living in an area of deprivation in a moldy house where you are maybe, you know, in an area of poverty and you're, and you're not white. So it's just that, that suddenly switch, light, light bulb for me that who I am and my opportunities beget more great opportunities and many, many, many people do not have that.

40:09

It is remarkable. Certainly from my time going into prisons I found that, you know, exactly as you say, that the people who were there were generally speaking, lower class, working class folk who had not had opportunity. They weren't particularly well educated, they couldn't afford a decent solicitor. And it was just, you know, it was a class of person that was there, there was, there was nobody from my background. I think there was one white collar sort of accountant who'd been involved in a bit of fraud. That was the only person I came across in terms of the young people who were there. You know, the male wings, the female wings and the vulnerable prisoners as well. Everybody was from these more difficult backgrounds. And as you say, that has to sort of shape your view of society.

42:16

Yeah, totally. And it also, you know, I believe very strongly that being in prison itself is the punishment. Right. And people who are in prison are not there to be, be further punished. The curtailing of freedom is a horrible experience. And I would, I think, you know, when you go through prison officer training, there is a period at which you get not in a nasty way, but they shut you in a prison cell so that you understand what it feels like to be in a six foot by, you know, not very wide, you know, 12 foot room. And it's terrifying. And the idea that, that you have no choice over that if you were to be put into prison, you have no choice and you are entirely dependent on other, other people's ability to come and open that door to make sure that you're fed, to have access to health care. You are then so vulnerable really. And it's a horror. You know, prisons are not nice places. They have a very distinct smell, they have very distinct soundscape. None of those things are contributing to good mental health or good choices or good outcomes. So anybody who manages to go through the prison process and come out through a process of reform or like restorative justice or do good things after it deserves a medal because it's, you know, it's an incredible transformation if they're able to do that. And so, yeah, I think, like, just my exposure to that really made me realize that people are just people and we are all a product. Yeah. And we're all just a product of our circumstances. And yes, there are things that we can do and choices we can make, but ultimately those choices are enabled and emboldened by our circumstances again. So I think it just made me acutely aware of privilege and that definitely tweaked my politics. Politics from being to the right of center to left of center.

42:56

But at the same time, there are still things aren't there from your childhood that are there. And I'm interested in what you've retained from your early years because, you know, you're within farming and that sort of food production world that you were talking about earlier. You were horsey. You're. You still do an awful lot of shooting and that sort of thing. A lot of things that, you know, people might sort of consider as being those sort of connected with those on the right of center. And so I'm just sort of interested in that mix. Because you, you are a real mix, can't you?

44:29

Yeah. Like, what an enigma. I don't know. I think it probably reflects also my music tastes, which vary from like classical through to bro country to hip hop to kind of pop. So maybe it is just a case of like. Yeah, just having like, really broad interests and, and not, you know, not being labeled and not fitting into a box. And it does allow an element of being, you know, chameleon, like behavior that you can fit into lots of different places and. And you can kind of fit in with different people. And also because I'm not afraid, afraid of being quite open. So, you know, I find myself in settings with quite posh people who are not necessarily used to being challenged on certain ideologies that they have or certain opinions and they, you know, maybe have a collective view on things and I will challenge that. And I, you know, find myself being invited to speak at events in certain places with a bunch of people who will be expressing certain opinions that I find very distasteful and very troubling. And I'm not backward in kind coming forward about that. And so yeah, I'm able to.

44:56

That's why you get invited back, Nikki.

45:51

Well, I know I never get, yeah, I never get invited back to these places. They just think, jesus, no, don't let her in, she's a right troublemaker. But, you know, that for me is important. And I guess there's an aspect of having ADHD that is about, there's a sense of justice. And so that's quite an ADHD thing is like being very acutely aware of injustice and not wanting there to be injustice. And fairness is really important. And so I suppose once you realize how unfair the world is and that many people experience that, you, you recognize that. And so it's about how do you internally place all those pieces back into the jigsaw to make you make yourself who you are? And so, yeah, there are people across all of those spectrums that I interact with who will like a part of me, but maybe won't like the other part. And then that's up to them as to how they, how they manage that, how they cope with that potential conflict that they're presented with, where, where they, you know, they, they like the fact that I can talk to them about shooting and that I can come out for a day shooting and understand how, how, what, how that looks and what, how you behave and which knife and fork to use and, you know, understanding all of that sort of stuff whilst also being very vocal about the rights of women or underrepresented groups and minority groups in, in our politics or in our society. So, yeah, I guess it's, it's about how you, how you manage all of that and not worry too much about whether people like you for it or not.

45:53

It's interesting you sort of came at it from that angle because you were sort of know, going out with the shooty friends and, and them not necessarily appreciating some of the more lefty views that you had. But actually I was going to ask you a question from the other direction that you must have lots of left wing friends now and I wonder if there were things that put you at odds with them at all.

47:10

I guess I don't have like, I guess most of my friends are fairly centrist. There's lots of people that I work with that I've worked with in my life who are very left wing and I actually find them sometimes more challenging. You know, it can become sometimes more difficult because we know the left is obsessed with like, you're never quite left enough. And so that's, there's always this issue and that's the downfall of the left and why the left always struggles is because everybody's infighting about whatever new type of politics we have to argue.

47:28

There's always got to be a new faction which basically just includes you.

47:55

Yeah, exactly. And so that's, you know, that's the problem. And so there are people who I spend lots of time with, hilariously, you can't really tell on the camera today because the cross quality is rubbish on my end but you know, with a nose ring, wandering about Glasgow, often people assume that I'm vegan and during cop when I was in Glasgow, you know, the kind of vegan activists like putting me on one side being, you know, thinking I'm one of them and I'm like, oh no, I'm a beef farmer. That was quite entertaining really.

47:58

But yeah. And how did those conversations go, Nikki?

48:22

Well then, like just, you know, having a. Have, you know, I've been privileged to have great conversations with vegan activists about why I do what I do. And you know, I don't expect them to like it. I don't expect to win the rounds. I just would expect that they wouldn't be so rude as to call me murderer and a rapist. Which is what happens a lot, you know, by vegan actor. Not just, I'm not talking about vegans, about vegan activists who have explicitly called me a murderer and a rapist, which I don't think is necessary and it's not helpful and it's not going to suddenly make me be vegan. So I don't quite know why they think they, that that's going to work.

48:24

Where does the raping come in?

48:54

Like an assumption around artificial insemination and an assumption that you're forcing animals to procreate for your, your own, for your own financial gain. And so yeah, I mean it's interesting, isn't it? I just, I find any activists generally tend to go so far that I don't quite know how they think that they will bring people on, on board because yeah, it's not, you're not going to win someone round by being nasty to them. So you find that fascinating.

48:56

You're in Scotland and land reform was something that, that I think that when we were talking before the podcast, you thought Mike put you at odds, odds with some of your sort of more left wing leaning friends.

49:22

Yeah, that's true. You know, there's a, there's definitely a push from the left, particularly around across the uk, but particularly here in Scotland where land reform is much more further progress that this idea that, you know, the best land management outcomes can only be achieved by collective management and assets stripping the wealthy, so that there is a more collective approach to land ownership, slash management. And I don't necessarily agree. I've seen examples, examples of collective or community land ownership that are amazing. And I've seen examples where it's dire and no one's able to make decisions and the land is just kind of going towards decline because no one can make a decision because of the collective approach or that they've managed to get the land, but then they've got no money to do anything with it. And so actually, all the best will in the world and intentions can't happen because there's no cash to support that. So from my perspective, it doesn't really matter who owns the land. It's about ensuring that people with the right expertise have the ability to access that land and to make significant land management decisions. And so our business partner who owns an estate, he and I, you know, my husband James, feel very strongly about this, that, you know, he doesn't necessarily know how to manage land, he knows how to run a business. And so our role is to come in and support the land management decision making with him and with the gamekeeper and various other stakeholders here so that we can have really good outcomes for the land, land that meet the objectives we collectively agree on. And it doesn't really matter that he owns it or we don't. And. And the business structure allows us a strong return on our investment into that business. So I think for me, land reform would be better to put its attentions, personally, I think, into more templates for how people can access land and make decisions and ensure that they have a fair income as a result of that. Rather than putting lots of time into kind of trying to beat the drum

49:32

for collective ownership, it often feels like the collective ownership, the land reform agenda, is a proxy for social reform rather than necessarily land reform in Scotland. It's interesting and certainly in terms of land reform, I completely take the point that land ownership is largely missing the point, certainly in terms of ecosystem outcomes, but in terms of that, we've got land ownership and particularly large estate land ownership, which would be seen as being something which is the preserve of the wealthy, preserve of the right, and then within sort of government around those ecological outcomes and the way that farming is managed. I wonder what your view of the role of government is, because, of course, you know, those on the left would often take a much more interventionist view around government. So how do you think Government should operate in terms of directing, controlling funding those outcomes around carbon storage, biodiversity recovery, water, et cetera.

51:20

Yeah, I mean there's never enough money in the public purse to deliver all of that.

52:12

Right.

52:15

Well, I think government needs to get much better, better at is regulating the kind of distribution of wealth from the super super rich or from business and taking maybe a polluter pays approach or an offsetting approach that better funds farming outcome, like good regenerative farming outcomes, as opposed to just nature restoration where you're taking farming off the landscape and doing rewilding, for example. So I think the role of government shouldn't be in regulating necessarily farming practice, but regulating business to push money from the private purse into good land management outcomes that are aligned with farmed kind of landscapes. So I'm privileged to have the opportunity to have some involvement in kind of policy design and discussions for Scottish government agriculture policy. But actually from all I'm really learning from that is there is no cash or you know, kind of there is, but you know, it's limited and it's not going to. There's a massive gap, isn't there, between what we need to fund the transition. And so for me, I would like to see government take a much stronger approach, approach to large corporate like reform of how we manage to get extract cash from large corporations and put that into better outcomes for water, for soil, for ecosystem health. Because ultimately those corporations can't operate without all of that underpinning it.

52:15

And presumably part of that is about, you know, really making sure that there are good frameworks around natural capital and that sort of thing that yeah, for

53:30

sure, but they need to not just be focused in kind of the, in nature landscapes. They need to be. And that this is, is God, this is a whole other podcast in itself. But understanding that nature and farming are not separate. And you asked me earlier about nature friendly farming, which is not a term that I really like because it always is about hedges and edges. And we are still at this point in our research kind of ecosystem where many, many researchers and policy makers don't understand that nature underpins good business sense and that it underpins ecological functioning systems that deliver the privilege that we have to farm. And so it's still this thing about. Or you have farming that's underpinned by chemical inputs and interventionist approaches in the land. And then we have nature over here in our hedges and our edges. And my perspective on farming is that it's about utilizing what you've got on your farm and enabling those functions and those ecosystem functions. That drive the farm business and drive productivity and drive, drive output, but also have the, all of these additional public goods and, you know, ecosystem service outputs. And rather than kind of separating those two things, they're all the same thing. If we get the farming right and it's how we then drive funding from the private sector to deliver that, I think, which is key.

53:36

It's something that, that really drives me up the wall, I have to say, is this idea of hedges and edges and, and actually through having the monthly conversations that I have with, with Martin Lynes, who runs the Nature Friendly Farming Network, because like you, I kind of had this sense, you know, that the Nature Friendly Farming Network probably would be about hedges and hedges. But certainly talking to Martin and to many others across the nffn, there is, you know, much greater sense, particularly now that it's about nature integration. It's about the center of the field, not just the edge of the field. And actually we recorded a podcast this morning. I'm not quite sure which of these is going out first, but anyway, a podcast this morning about integrated pest management with people who are associated with the nffn. It was somebody from horticulture, arable farmer and livestock farmer. And all of them were talking about farm systems, ecosystems, about holistic management, about the center of the field and the soil health, the soil being just as an important habitat, probably the most important habitat from which everything else comes.

54:53

And you know, I totally agree with that. And I, and I really get frustrated, particularly when we talk about things like, oh, we need to give 10% of our farm to nature or 30%, no 100% of your farm delivers for nature in terms of ecosystem functioning. How much of that is then re geared towards delivering a productive output that you can sell, that is a crop or an animal output, and how much of that is geared towards only energy flow towards nature for nature's sake is going to be different on every farm. And I don't want anyone to think that this is me trying to justify crap farming by going, oh, but it's all nature. Because I'm not. What I'm saying is that it all is based on a healthy, functioning ecosystem which we can metricize through things like, you know, soil health, through looking at aggregation, we can look at rooting depth, we can look at the rhizosphere and the condition of that. We can look at water infiltration, we can look at water quality. You know, there's loads of methods, metrics that we can use to determine how functional, functionally effective the ecosystem is. On that farm. And what I'm saying is that, you know, like to just reflect what you've just mentioned, that it's that. That we need to focus on, not, oh, I've got some hedges, or that I'm managing this for waders.

55:55

It feels like there's almost a generational difference here. And when I say generational difference, I actually don't mean by age. I mean people who were involved in farmers. Farming a decade or more before in farming policy very often seem to be sort of centered around this idea of 10% or 20% or 30%, whatever percentage it happens to be for farming, rather than the sort of the newer generation which has sort of been brought through the regenerative world, this sort of sense of ecosystems where actually, you know, it's 100%, it's very simple, it's 100% of land needs to be integrated with nature. Nature. And in that way, you have resilient farms and you have resilient ecosystems and resilient businesses.

57:06

Yeah, totally agree. Yes. There you go.

57:47

Yeah, we sorted the world. I want to move on to women, and there's always something a bit incongruous about men talking about women's issues. So. So forgive me, and I'm going to try and sort of navigate my way through this, but you're pretty vocal as well. You know, we talked about social politics, small P politics. You're pretty vocal in terms of women's equality. We've already, you know, you talked about the cock off earlier on, which is a phrase that I think I'm going to have to use on a regular basis, not least because I love it. And the onomatopoe quality about it is fantastic. But you're promoting female voices in what has been a traditionally male world, and that must put you in quite a vulnerable position. And so I just wonder if you could talk about how difficult, if at all, that's been for you and whether over the course of the time that you've been on these various different panels, whether it's getting any easier. Easier?

57:50

It is difficult at times. And I think what's probably getting easier is my willingness to call it out more publicly and to challenge it. You know, and it's interesting, there's a conference that's happening at the moment, and I messaged them on Instagram yesterday saying, you know, it looks like a great conference program, but I noticed that almost all of your panel speakers are male. There's very little representation in terms of wider diversity. Any kind of thoughts to change that in the future? And they've just not responded. So I mean, you know, sometimes you just get nothing back. But I do think that more and more people are, are committed to making a change in the sector for women. Some people have done a great job around, you know, bringing this to the, to the fore. There's been great campaigns in Farmers Weekly talking about these issues. The thing that still frustrates me is that there's this sense of, well, if it hasn't happened to me, it's not a real issue. And I get really frustrated by women who are like, well, I grew up with five brothers and as, as long as you work hard, it's fine. And it's like, great. You didn't have that experience. I love that for you. That's great that you didn't have to experience some of the challenges that other women have experienced. That doesn't mean that they didn't experience them. And I think that we still do have this real issue and it, and it links, you know, back to this idea of like politics and understanding that just because it doesn't affect you doesn't mean it isn't real. And I think that that definitely is still very much a feature in agriculture and there are lots of women within agriculture who kind of still kind of promote that idea that, well, if you, if you just work as hard as the boys, you'll be accepted. But actually it's also to think about things like the differing needs of women. If we're asking, you know, women to come in, to come and work on farm, for example, are there places that they can use, you know, are there decent toilet facilities so that if they are in the middle of their menstrual cycle, they've got the opportunity to use those and they're not having to kind of, you know, pee behind a hedge and all that kind of stuff that I just think is often forgotten about. And, and I just, I guess that there is just something about how we consider the needs of women better within our agricultural systems and, and, and businesses particularly. And I've noticed something recently. So I, I am admin for a couple of big UK wide WhatsApp groups. One of them is Mob Grazing. The other is Regen Ag, which my brilliant friend Hannah set up. And then she then set up another group which was Regen Women Folk. And it took such a different vibe. Vibe, like one of them is just for women or, you know, anyone who identifies as a woman. And it's, the vibe is so different. Like it's fascinating how different the level of support, the encouragement the enthusiasm is in there. And I'm not saying there's other WhatsApp groups aren't supportive and encouraging. They absolutely are.

58:38

But they are quite male dominated.

1:01:08

Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. They are definitely male dominated. And although there are lots of women who are very able to have a voice there, just the way that, that things are kind of just the level of mansplaining, I guess, is different. So, yeah, it's just fascinating, you know, and I'm not making a judgment, it's just an interesting observation from my perspective, it changes things.

1:01:10

It is. And, you know, and actually I think sometimes it is worth making the judgment. And I'm on the Regen Ag chat and I've certainly noticed, you know, there is quite a lot of machismo and a lot of sort of, you know, what people would call banter, I suppose, which I find quite off putting quite quickly, you know, so. So I, I dip into it every now and then until I get fed up with it and then go away and then come back again a little bit later, as in, you know, a few days later or a week or two later. And, and the type of things that the women are putting on, there are very often much more on topic.

1:01:28

Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. I think so. And I think there is something about, you know, there's also, as part of this discussion, an important remind. I think there is something to remember about how men communicate and often that are lots of lonely men working on farms who just need someone to kind of chat to and have and have a conversation with. And we have a very good friend who lives over the hill who has come and done some work here with us when we were gathering sheep. And his expertise was so necessary for us to be able to do what we were doing. Absolutely brilliant guy. Him and his wife are some of the best people I know, actually, kind of locally, since we've met, moving to Scotland, we have incredibly different politics. And actually a discussion with you, me and him would be a fascinating one. I would love to do that sometime. But I remember him saying to me when we were working sheep in the fan, men to have a good conversation. Men, men talk next to each other, they don't face each other, they work, they, you know, they talk alongside each other. And so actually for men to work in community, doing a job, whether that's man, you know, collecting sheep, putting sheep through the fangs, working cattle through a handling system, working alongside each other, other gives them the opportunity to have conversations, to, to address their fears, their concerns, their issues. And we don't have enough of that, you know, and there are. There are not enough men who are able to work alongside other men in the farming sector shoulder to shoulder, like literally shoulder to shoulder, to have those opportunities for discussion. And so I think there's something about finding places, safe places for them to do that. But what often happens is that the interpretation of that topic matter sometimes is. Is lost and is not as easy to understand in a. In a WhatsApp group as it is when you are working in the FAQs with somebody.

1:01:58

Yeah. There's a big difference between a conversation that you have in person and a conversation that you have online, no matter, you know, where that is. There's a book that I mentioned to you before we started by Grayson Perry called the Descent of Man, and it's. And it's one anybody who's got a remote interest in this issue I think should read. It's. I've just read the first half of it because at that point it came slightly repetitive, but essentially it. I found, you know, there aren't many books that change your life, but I found it was really important because I'd grown up in a world where. Where there was a. There were a lot of strong feminists that I knew, that my mother knew, and. And I was always very, very nervous of appearing too male. You know, I was sort of very careful about it. I was always very proud that, you know, from being almost a toddler onwards, I would always put the toilet seat down, things like that. I was always very, very conscious of what I should do. So that was women wouldn't feel oppressed. And there is something about that sort of strife for equality that I think has then sort of led me almost to kind of assume that everybody works in the same way that women and men, you know, think in the same way, because that's almost what equality teaches you. But actually, what this book was doing was showing me that it's okay to recognize that women think differently, that women behave differently. And actually, actually, you know, there are often sort of skirmishes between, you know, women with a male boss and the man just expects them to think and behave in exactly the same way that they do. But actually, their value to the team is that they do think differently. They think in different ways.

1:03:34

Yeah, it's the difference between equity and equality, isn't it? And this is something that I've kind of been working through internally, but also in a lot of the roles that I have where, you know, just because we say to women, oh, well, this event is open to you, so Quite often I'll challenge like, you know, the present, the number, the lack of women at an event and the host, the, the person who's organized it will go well. They were invited, you know, what, what, the door was open. Why didn't they walk through it? Well, you think the door was open because you're a man who opened the door. But actually, what other things did you put in place to make sure that women could attend? So whether we like it or not, women have predominant care, child care responsibilities. Still in the uk, there are lots of men who also look after children, but predominantly it's women that have child, childcare responsibilities. So how did you, as an event organiser, think about the timing of the event to maybe coincide with the school day, for example, and the, you know, the wraparound childcare that needs to happen at the start or end? Or did you think about making it clear to women that if they were attending, they were welcome to bring a baby in arms if they had one? You know, how did you, as an event organiser make it very clear that women were explicitly welcome here, given that they may face additional structural barriers, barriers to access. And I think that for me is the key thing. It's about how do we make sure that we're not just opening the door or saying, well, we're, you know, women have the same opportunity. That's like saying, you know, somebody who comes from a deprived background has the same opportunity to eat healthy food. No, they don't. Because actually I can just drive to the supermarket in my car that I own and that I have, you know, I have a driving license at any time to get the food I want to eat, make. Maybe that person has access to one bus a week that takes them to a slightly crap shop that at a time where the shop hasn't been restocked and so they don't have access to the same food and they've got a lower budget and they can only carry what they can put in bags that they can then literally carry. You know, there's all these structural barriers that often people just forget. And I think, you know, comes back to that point about politics and how we recognize inequality isn't about inequality necessarily of opportunity, but it's like, how do we make sure that we take down the very specific barriers for very specific groups of people when we are trying to create opportunity?

1:05:03

It is remarkable. You know, I live in the countryside, I'm surrounded by farming, and yet it is really difficult to eat. Well, you know, it's, it's just not accessible Most food has to be got from supermarkets and my goodness, it's expensive. Our family is on a decent income, but it still feels really expensive to eat well. So certainly those opportunities. But sort of going back to that idea of women, you were talking there about women in the audience, you know, having sort of women coming through the door, being part of an event, but just in terms of, of panels and that sort of thing, over the last few years I have seen more women, more sort of representation, more diversity generally on panels related to agriculture. But do you think that there needs to be almost positive discrimination where you're finding a woman because she's a woman, as opposed to that idea of, well, we find the best person, the best person to speak on this particular issue.

1:07:11

Yeah, but the best person to speak on the issue may well be a woman and also maybe try a bit harder to find the best person to speak on it, who is also a woman or who is also not white, or who is also not middle class or who is also not a fourth generation farmer or whatever it is that we need to encourage more of in the sector. If you are not a white middle class person and you're coming into agriculture, or even, you know, white working class person, you know, raw working class and you're coming into agriculture, often there are not people that look like you. So how can we make sure that we create opportunities to represent in this group of four people on this panel, farming and agriculture in the UK is predominantly representative of, you know, white middle class, for example. But actually there are other people also. And so sometimes we do have to work a bit harder as an organization user, as somebody who's putting on an event to get the right people on that panel to make sure that we're not just kind of representing a version of agriculture. And we have a responsibility to represent what we might want a future version of agriculture to look like, which is more equitable, which is more diverse. So if you're putting on an event, you know, if anyone's listening to this and they're putting on events, first of all, pay your speakers and stop expecting them to work for free. Just putting that out there. Because if you are a farmer, whether you're male or female, whoever you are, you may well have to be paying someone to cover your job so that you can come and talk about the thing that you've, you're being invited to talk about. Your costs aren't being covered by some other kind of unknown employer. There are lots of additional costs to cover. And part of that then means that for example, if you've got child care costs that then need to be covered, it may be that women need to have an additional fee if they are the primary caregiver, or we ask, are you the primary caregiver? Do you have to also find child care care to allow you to come to speak at this event? If yes, bluming, well, pay for that. So there is a responsibility, if you're putting on an event to not only ensure that the people who are speaking and who are giving you an event to put on, you know, that you're using to attract people in to pay that event fee, that they are fairly treated and representative of a future agriculture sector that we want to see.

1:07:59

It's interesting, isn't it? You have so many industries where there's so little money around and that becomes really difficult. And as I say, you know, I grew up sort of working in theater. That was my sort of first career. And, you know, there was this real expectation I would often design shows and I'd get expenses only because there just wasn't the money there. And, you know, you leave it because you just can't afford to live. It's so difficult. So, yeah, all important things that you've brought in there. I sort of wandering around positive discrimination and so on, I suppose, because there were different views about how to. How to bring women in, into what is essentially a male world, or has traditionally been a male world. And this was the same for the Labour Party, you know, sort of 20, 30 years ago. There was a lot of positive discrimination where women only shortlists to select candidates for parliamentary seats because there were so few female MPs. And now within the Labour Party, I think it's, you know, half of the MPs are women, half of the MPs are men. Similar in the Conservative Party, although they've gone a different route to sort of get there. But it has taken that sort of big effort from all of the political parties to make sure that there is more representation of the fact that there are men and women in Britain.

1:10:01

Yeah, it's all about ensuring that people. You can't be what you can't see. Right. And so we just have to take that responsibility. And I think, you know, I have conversations with people all the time about events that are put on that we're ultimately, you know, kind of. Many of us are doing a lot of free work work and we're shoring up. And whether we're doing that for organizations or for the sector as a whole or the movement, if you like, the region Ag movement. And it would have been the same in the labor movement that ultimately good people who are enthusiastic end up using their position to shore up the kind of lack of money, the lack of funding, the lack of support for more diverse representation. And so I think that's the thing that we just need to quite often be quite honest about and challenge it. And, you know, it might be that people want to do good like the Labor Party wants to generally, you know, have better outcomes for more people. The many, not the few, all of that stuff. But we can do it in agriculture. We need to make sure that we're saying, you know, that we're representing the sort of future that we want. I say this all the time to farmers who are kind of complaining about, no one values us. We're not getting paid enough. Well, are you paying yourself? Because if you're not, then if you don't value yourself, why should anybody else value you? So I think, you know, we need to be much, much stronger. I get invited to go and speak at events and conferences that I know are paying £1,000 a day to some business consultant. And when I say, right, this is my day rate, oh, well, we don't. Our policy is that we don't pay farmers well, then I'm not coming to speak at your conference. And so I think we just need to all be much, much stricter about that and be more challenging when we're presented with it.

1:11:09

We talked a little bit about WhatsApp groups and so on, but in general, you know, sort of women around farming. Do you think that women farm differently? Do they think differently, behave differently to men?

1:12:36

Yeah, definitely. There's some really interesting research that shows that when you swap male workers in dairies out for female workers, milk yield goes up. And I'm not saying anything, you know, I'm not saying that's the case across all dairies, and there's some amazing dairymen out there, but there are some interesting responses that we see. And, you know, that dairy has a much higher representation of women than other sectors in. Within agriculture. So I think there are different ways of thinking and different ways of understanding animals and land and decision making and the way that we think. So I totally agree. I think they're very, very different ways that we approach farming, that we approach land management, that we consider reciprocity care, probably in a different way to the way that many men do. And that doesn't mean that men can't. And it doesn't mean that they can't educate themselves around those approaches or those ways of thinking. But ultimately, you know, I think that there is an innate kind of. Kind of sense that women, that the all that the feminine energy, whether that's from male or female, that a feminine energy brings to land management, to stewardship, to care, that is going to be different from it, from a male energy. And I just. I just think it's worth saying that there are a lot of things that I do in my life that I could say come from a male energy, if you like. So, you know, the fact that I'm the sort of person that if I look at a job advert and I can do two things on the job description, I'll apply. Whereas most women need to be able to tick off 10 things out of 10 of the 10 to be able to apply. So there's a level of confidence or maybe an almost a machismo that I know that I can demonstrate at times. So, you know, there are male types of energy that can be demonstrated by women and vice versa that I think bring us a rich and interesting tapestry that's. That's exciting, right?

1:12:47

We talk a lot about diversity, don't we? Diversity and abundance. When, you know, in terms of aggregate, in terms of regenerative agriculture and, you know, just through this conversation, I think in the same way that we need diversity in the field, we need diversity in decision making and thinking, don't we? So there is something really important about hearing different perspectives, different points of view. And if you're trying to get through a problem, then hearing things from a female perspective as well as from a male perspective, presumably it must be something that can only be positive. I wanted to ask you, I mean, I mentioned this earlier on, but it's the International Year of the Woman Farm. The aim of that year, it's the United Nations Year of the Women Farmer, is to address structural inequality, to empower women and to build a more resilient food system. Those are the kind of the key objectives of this sort of year. And I just wonder. We've talked through some of them, but are there other issues in terms of the UK that you think need attention in order to deliver against that structure and inequality? Empower women, build a more resilient food system. And how should they be tackled?

1:14:23

Yeah, I mean, I guess from my perspective, just more men need to be calling out male colleagues. I don't want women to be doing the work on this anymore. We're all exhausted. You know, we've been challenging this and feminists have been actively, or female feminists have been actively working on this for decades. What we need is more men to be calling out their colleagues to not make excuses for their colleagues, to challenge the structural inequalities, to challenge things when they see them. Let's make sure that men are not just doing the bare minimum to be, you know, like just to exist, but they're going above and beyond to challenge those inequalities and the things that they're seeing. And that doesn't mean that they have to be difficult or bulshy or argumentative, you know, and I think my. You know, I really respect the way that my husband manages to do this sometimes. You know, he will be with male friends who will say things that he fundamentally disagrees with that he can find quite offensive, but he won't kind of tell them that they're wrong or that they shouldn't think like that. But he's very good at saying, well, have you thought about this? And he would just slightly kind of put an alternative spin on it. And quite a lot of his friends are like, oh, I always come away from a conversation with you thinking a little bit differently or considering something I hadn't before. So he's much better at it than I am. I'm, you know, like straight in there. Don't say that. That's not okay. You know, I will be quite competitive about it. Whereas James is much more thoughtful and considered in the way that he will challenge people. So. And I think that that's what we need, is that we need more men to be very confident and take them, take the time to challenge stuff when no women are around. Don't do it in a performative way, because I'm there and I'm like, oh, isn't he good? He's very good at kind of standing up for women. Stand up for women and for other people who are marginalized when those marginalized people aren't. That aren't there. And that's integrity, right? Doing the right thing when nobody's watching. So I think that's what I would call for the International Year of the Woman Farmer shouldn't be necessarily just about platforming women. It should be putting the pressure on men to do more, to create the space for more women to be able to do their job.

1:15:26

Well, thanks, Nikki. We need to finish, but I've got one more question that I just want to ask you to bring us back to regenerative agriculture. And so just thinking more broadly about the regenerative movement as a whole, could you just. I mean, it's a simple question, but I'm sure You've thought about it. It's just, what are the key challenges for regen farming at the moment and are there sort of chinks of light and opportunities as well?

1:17:19

Yeah, I would definitely say that, like, in terms of the argument for. I think that what I, through my PhD and sort of the other work that I've been doing over recent years.

1:17:40

What is PhD, Nikki? I haven't asked you that.

1:17:49

Yeah, so it's agroecological transitions, the role of nature in shaping farm systems. So, you know, I've looked at systems thinking, how farms utilize nature as a leverage point to kind of change their farm systems. Once I've done my viva, in a couple of months time, I will send you all the information and, you know, by all means, I'd love to, love to talk to you about it more. But I guess what I've learned is that often across the uk, financial literacy in the farming sector is dire. Like it's better in dairy and in some of the more intensive systems like pigs and poultry than it is in beef and sheep and arable. But I would definitely say that generally our financial literacy in the UK agriculture sector is poor, given the scale of assets that we collectively manage and own. And so what I often find is that people, if you're presenting regenerative agriculture to them, they'll be like, oh, well, does it pay? Well? Yes, but their understanding of does it pay? Often comes from a question of turnover. And actually the question is, does it deliver margin? And you can go to. I've been going to groundswell for years now and every year you go and sit in an arable presentation where they tell you the cost of establishment and the overall margin for a crop time and time again, through systems that align with regenerative principles is always better. We have research that shows that Pasture for Life certified farms are eight times more profitable than their conventional counterparts in the uk. Nobody believes these. These numbers. People just go, well, that's not true, that's not true. Even though I'm like, here's the data, here's the numbers, there it is in black and white. You've asked for the data. They don't want to believe it because they almost cannot quite get their head round how can it be so much better than my experience? So for me, that what we need to get much better at is financial literacy generally across farming. Whether you're interested in regen or not, that has to improve. We also have to help people to understand the value proposition of changing your practice to those which align with the regenerative principles so that you can understand the impact on margin and that you can model that over a few five year period. Because no, in year year one it might not be great, but by year five you're going to be potentially in a much, much better position. So value add value proposition from a monetary perspective on the benefit of to the margin and to your pocket for that system change is something we really, really need to get better at articulating.

1:17:52

Let's leave it there. And what a great place to leave it. I said this once before that it was the longest podcast I've ever done, but this has surpassed it, I think, by quite some stretch. You've been so generous with your time, Nikki, and it's as ever, it's an absolute pleasure to talk to you because you think so deeply about all these things and articulate them so incredibly well. But that is all we have time for. So I'd like to thank my guest Nikki Yoxall, and if you've enjoyed listening, please come back and listen to more. Tell your friends like us, review us and share our links. Farmgate is now the world's highest ranking food security podcast and we're part of89.com the last land use news channel, which are supported by First Milk, Pelican Ag, the Nature Friendly Farming Network, Friars More Livestock, Health, Agrolo, and individual donors like the infinlocustain. Bye for now.

1:20:07