Jimmy Doherty... the full story

So, there's a role for different farming systems then, is there?

 

Yes, but there always has been. The reason why everything exists in terms of different farming types is because a market exists for it. If I was to say: Everyone should have pigs like me. Great, in theory. But no one is prepared to pay for it en masse. Saying everyone should be eating traditionally dry-cured bacon from free range rare breed pigs, there is a reality in terms of what people are prepared to pay for food.

 

The bottom line is you're being constantly pushed to produce more for less. That's the reality of how things are.

 

When people come here and see free range rare breed pigs, it's a picture of tranquillity. They think: This is how it should be. Until they see the price of the sausages and then the reality of what this costs, a farm like this - and it only works if I've got a farm shop and sell direct to the public and the added value side of it.

 

How does it compare with the Jimmy's Farm series?

 

That was following me - what I do in my life, and had the element of jeopardy in it.

It was about farming - because it was about me setting a farm up, but it was more about the trials and tribulations of setting a business up. I got emails saying: We've been thought the same thing, whether it was a bakery or a hairdressers.

 

Every mistake there is to make in farming, I've probably made it in the last five years

 

It wasn't any representation of farming UK and of what goes on across the landscape.

 

How have you juggled the tv work and the farm?

 

That's always a problem. The way I solve that it having a very good partner - my other half, Michaela. We have a number of key members of staff.

 

It's probably a similar situation on a lot of farms - the bloke in the tractor looks like he's barking out the orders but it's the wife who's making sure it's all done on time!

 

Do you fancy a full time career in TV?

 

I've been offered lots of TV work. But that would do your nut in. That's a very ephemeral world, as well

 

In terms of TV, I do what I'm interested in. It's interesting work - when else would I ever get to travel round the country and view all these different farms. And you come back with the most amazing ideas. You see things and say: How can I do that?

 

But it's bloody hard work. If anyone thinks filming is easy, I'd say: Try a week of it. It's very tiring.

 

We'll always be farming. Even if we couldn't be here, we'd go somewhere else.

It's a great opportunity and if someone gives you an opportunity in life, you should make the most of it.

 

What do you think of the fact that you're now a celebrity?

 

I had to do 16 interview back-to-back the other day. They call me a 'celebrity pig farmer'. I think f*****g hell. It does make you laugh. There is an obsession in the UK with celebrity. I'm not that famous. I see myself as a bit of a Z-lister. A lot of our time is spent talking about celebrities. We tend to miss what's important in life.

 

People recognise you, that's the strangest thing, but they don't know who you are. They think you must be some relative or that they've met you at a wedding or something.

 

Does being well known change your life?

 

You can't walk round swearing if you hit your hand with a hammer!

 

Some people turn up and expect you to be chasing chickens and falling over (which does happen!) It's important that you show your face and you're here, because we rely on the public.

 

What is unfair is that the people who work here - Michaela - don't get the recognition they deserve.

 

So we're not going to see you on the front cover of Heat magazine, lurching out of the Groucho Club with Jordan?

 

No, you won't see any of that. I've been to The Groucho Club once. I went to a friend's do and afterwards he took me to this club - I didn't know it was The Groucho until I got there. After I saw the price of drinks, I didn't stay there very long!

 

TV's actually more about staying in little pokey hotels and eating service station sandwiches.

 

How did you get interested in farming?

 

I've always been interested in it. My family came from London, we moved out to Clavering in Essex. I grew up around there, massively interested in the natural world

 

A friend of mine, Simon Day, his dad Colin owned a smallholding, had Dexter cattleand Gloucester cattle and Ryeland sheep. I was fascinated in these indigenous breeds

 

Time went on and I got a job on a wildlife park that had an arable farm attached to it... and there my interest in zoology really grew.  That took me down the academic route. I did a degree in zoology at Coventry and a phd in entomology.

 

I loved the natural world. The thing about academic life is that it turns all the colour and vibrancy of the natural world into numbers. You're sitting in a room doing statistics. I used to count flies down a microscope. Thousands of flies. And not the big old jobs, either - the tiny ones!

 

I used to keep chicken as a kid and grew vegetables as a student. I'd read all the books by John Seymour on self sufficiency. But there's no point doing it as a sideline. It had to work as a business. For it to work as a business, the only way I could have a small mixed farm and for it to work, and to be viable, was to do all the processing, add all the value and sell direct to the public

 

I didn't want to go through life with regret.  I could be in academic life now, in some university department with a few bantams in the garden thinking: What it? I'd rather do it and fail than not do it at all.

 

But why run a farm yourself?

 

Ask anyone who's set up their own business. It's being in control of your own destiny.

I now employ 15 full time people. I sometimes think: Wouldn't it be great to have someone to pay my holidays and sick pay etc and not have to worry about that.

 

It's a huge worry, but you're the captain of the ship. There's something great about that.

There are quite a lot of sleepless nights. You always have that, don't you. There are two 5 o'clocks in the day!

 

We've got huge overheads because there are a number of income streams that keep this business going and involve a lot of people. We've got to take a lot of money each month to break even.

 

We got about 100 acres (we've just got rid of 40 acres because we've reduced the herd.)

We've reduced the herd right down now because feed costs have gone up. It was important that we decreased our herd when the feed price went up because January and February is our quietest time in the shop.

 

We've got about 40 breeding sows - traditional breeds, a small flock of traditional breed sheep and 45 cows.

 

We will scale up pigs again if it's more economic. It's all really about the farmshop. We have a range of fresh cuts.. what we need here is versatility.

 

What we're trying to do here is offer stuff that people can't get in other farm shops and you definitely can't get in the supermarket - which is the huge diversity of cuts and the different ranges of breeds.

 

Do you rent or own the farm?

 

We rent all this. That makes it very difficult to finance anything. What we take in the shop pays the wages and feeds the pigs for the next week.

 

I'd like to be able to own a farm. If I had this as collateral and could borrow money against, that would be great because there are so many things we want to invest in.

 

What have been the highlights?

 

Employing 15 full time people - athough it can be a pain in the arse. 15 people rely on this place. It's given them their jobs. Plus, our farmers market here, which has been going for nearly three years now. That's created a community. We have it every month and we support about 35 local producers. It creates a focus and the money goes back into the local community and that's really good. It's like lighting a fuse.. it just sets off

 

What about the low points?

 

The stress and strain it puts on you physically and mentally. That's something you've got to learn to live with, that's life.

 

What advice would you give someone else looking to start out?

 

Don't try to do too many things at once. Simple is good - but you've always got to try something new. We had to hit the ground running,

 

Opening the farm up to the public is great and it creates revenue, but it also creates problems. The health and safety we have to go through, you wouldn't believe. Oh yes, and don't get any goats!

 

What are you plans for the future?

 

There are lots of ideas we'd love to do. We've even thought of trying to open a couple of little farmshop-type shops in towns. Because everything we have in our shops tries to be local, and if not local, British. If we could do that on the high street, it would be great. I'm very keen on independent retailers.

 

I'd like to have a little butchery training area. If you get other butchers set up, then you've got an outlet for livestock farmers to sell into rather than just the supermarkets.

 

Why do you think it's important to attract young people into agriculture?

 

It's very important to encourage young people. Every farm we went to for the tv show, I tried to involve the young people if there were any there.

 

It's immensely rewarding career - and there's something very admirable about producing food and adding something positive back to society. Problem is, everybody wants to be a bloody footballer or web designer.

 

Modern agriculture is very technical and there is some amazing machinery, but what's the point of just looking at a chart full of figures or the % increase in yields on a graph. If you sat down and showed that to a young person it would bore them. If you say: Look, have a go at this, it's like Star Wars, that engages them.

 

It's getting the bits that are really fascinating. Because farmers are at the coal face all the time, because it's their daily job, they forget sometimes to sit back and say: Yes, this is bloody amazing.

 

With young people, you're dealing with the PlayStation generation. It's all about instant gratification. It's like trying to get young people into gardening and you say: Come back next year they'd say what? But show them other things. Give them a seed and say: you've got some magic in your hands... it gets them interested.

 

Those peas, waiting to be harvested. All the waiting. Then the mad rush. The people driving the machines are like Spitfire Pilots.

 

So, you're mates with Jamie Oliver?

 

I've known him since I was four years old. I'm godfather to his daughter.

 

I borrowed some money off him for a short period which was a business loan from his company, which was properly done and has been paid back. I did I because I didn't have any collateral to borrow from a bank. Everyone thinks it was some sort of handout. The tv side had nothing to do with Jamie

 

Do you find the suggestion that you're merely playing at farming hurtful?

 

Yes - but what are you going to do ultimately? You can't go round to every single person and say: this isn't true.

 

I do it myself. When you see tv or read something in the paper, you say: I don't believe that.

 

We are naturally critical of tv because we've lived with tv for years. We're media savvy. We're used to having the wool pulled over our eyes.

 

To be honest, I don't really care about that any more because the reality of it is I'm more focused on making my business work here and selling sausages.

 

You'll always have your critics. Without it, life would be too easy. It makes you more determined.

 

At first, people thought I was a flash in the pan. If you come into a profession and a tv show is made of it, there's always an element of that. If I'd just come out of agricultural college and inherited my father's farm, it might have been a more conventional story - but that wasn't the way.

 

What we're trying to do herre is be open and engaging. That's why Open Farm Sunday was such a great success. All of a sudden, it dispels huge amounts of suspicion that people may have about agriculture.

 

What would you be doing if you weren't a farmer?

 

I'd have probably carried on with academic life and I'd be doing research into invertebrates.

 

I wanted to be a policeman when I was younger and, when I was doing my A levels, I wanted to get a commission in the Royal Marines. I was in the TA for 5 years, because I wanted to see what it was like at junior ranks before going for a commission.

 

I think there is something honourable about service to your country, but I like being in control of my own life.

 

I don't think it should be unfashionable to be old-fashioned. It's good to be proud of where you're from. We should be like that all the time. Not just in the World Cup. You can celebrate in other ways - go to a farmers market and buy British products!

 

We live in a great nation, we're a fantastic nation, we should celebrate it rather than pick bloody holes in it all the time and the media's full of negativity. A bit of flag waving doesn't hurt anyone.

 

What do you think of government's approach to farming?

 

They make are huge knee-jerk reactions in terms of public opinion. All they do is think about votes and, in terms of the length of time they're in government, farming is a long term thing so it's not about instant fixes or knee jerk reactions.

 

They need to open their eyes to the reality and importance of food security. Farming isn't like any other industry. You can't make the assumptions you can with any other manufacturing business. Food is such a precious commodity. It's what supports the world's population.

 

Unfortunately farmers can't vote in a pay rise for themselves!

 

The only way it changes is if the public become interested and aware of it because, at the end of the day, what are governments interested in - votes.

 

What's your view on the state of the pig industry generally?

 

January to February was a really depressing time. It's a horrendous situation that the British pig farmer is in. It's not a lot to ask to save it, either. People buy dvds ay £15 and not think twice about it. Imagine not having a bacon sandwich - something so quintessentially British.

How do you feel about having become something of a spokesperson for British farmers?

 

I don't think I'm the first farmer ever to be on tv or to have written a book, that's for sure.

If anything good comes out of the programme, it's to put across what farming is all about and the reality of it - be it the difficulty of running a business or the sheer amazingness of how our food gets to our plates. I truly do see them as unsung heroes.

 

What's distinctive about our food culture is worth celebrating?

 

I want people to see the reality of farming - regardless of my opinion of it and see it in a positive light.

 

What traits do you think characterise farmers?

 

Determination is the great one. I saw that in the North - after going through the devastation of foot and mouth. God, after completely being on your arse and then to say: We're not going to give up. That almost moves you to tears.

 

That's something that I believe runs in our veins - that's part of being British. That comes through in so many of the farmers.

 

Determination - and a constant reinventing of themselves. Because whatever is thrown at them, they bob up to the top again

 

What are the biggest problems farming are facing at the moment?

 

The biggest one is not having enough power or backing from government to say: Hang on, these supermarkets are shafting us. There needs to be a rebalancing of the fairness of those deals.

 

When supermarkets have a price war, who pays for that? That's what the public needs to see.

 

That's one of the biggest challenges: trying to get an honest day's pay for an honest day's work.

 

What's new at Jimmy's Farm?

 

We've created an indoor butterfly house which we're opening in August. We're also building a butterfly garden and a dragonfly pond to demonstrate how conservation and farming go hand in hand.

 

I'm obsessed with breeding butterflies - it's something I've been interested in since I was about 11.

 

The idea is that the butterflies captivate the kids. It doesn't matter what the weather is, they'll see these amazing creatures, then once they go outside they'll walk into a garden where all the British butterflies are.

 

What's your view on the TB situation?

 

I wonder what the public's opinion would be if it was rats that were spreading it. Badgers - they're quite cute looking, aren't they!

 

The evidence has to be weighed up and a proper judgement made on it. But at the end of the day, it's the farmers who will end up paying either way - because if nothing's done, the farmer will still end up paying in terms of loss of cattle; if there is a cull, then the farmer pays because of public opinion on culling badgers.

 

That's the problem with government - jumping to public opinion because it's unsavoury.

In terms of farming, you've got to deal with life and death and blood and guts every day and there are certain decisions you have to make that aren't popular but they are necessary and I think government has to take heed of that and not always sway to public opinion.

 

Where's your favourite place?

 

A spot known as the 'humps and bumps' in Clavering. It used to be a Norman castle and I used to sit there in a tree and watch the Kingfisher that used to fly in by a moat.

 

What tv do you watch?

 

I like The Apprentice. The sheer terror that runs down my spine as I imagine myself sitting in that boardroom. I don't like the reality stuff - which is funny because I had one made about me.

What's your favourite book?

 

Journey to the Ants by E O Wilson. It's a popular science book about ants and ant colonies. It puts you in your place in the world.

 

Tell us a secret about yourself
I'm mad about the Second World War and love military history.  It's a bloke's thing. If I get a day off, I love to sit down with a plate of toad-in-the-hole, a bottle of Greene King IPA and watch A Bridge Too Far.

 

Name two films that you like?

The Mission and Last of the Mohicans.

 

What's your favourite tipple?

Greene King. Adnams is also good. I like cider, too..

 

What are you listening to in the tractor at the moment?

I'm into Neil Diamond at the moment.

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