Opinion: My YouTube debut will just have to wait

My teenage son, awestruck by the range and financial possibilities of YouTube farming videos, suggested setting up a channel this summer.

We’re lucky to have some inspiring views, abundant wildlife, throaty sounding diesel engines and a lot of drone footage he has painstakingly captured over the year.

I told him I thought we were probably a bit late to this particular party.

See also: Opinion – farmers can be guilty of mixed messaging

About the author

Sam Walker

Farmers Weekly opinion writer

Sam is a first-generation tenant farmer running a 120ha (300-acre) organic arable and beef farm on the Jurassic Coast of East Devon. He has a BSc from Harper Adams and previous jobs have included farm management in Gloucestershire and Cambridgeshire and overseas development work in Papua New Guinea and Zimbabwe. He is a trustee of FWAG South West and his landlords, Clinton Devon Estate, ran an ELM trial in which he was closely involved, along with fellow tenants.

Read more articles by Sam Walker

And that while I’m certain I don’t have the face to be a TV presenter, I’m not sure I’ve got the requisite skills and knowledge either.

The number of celebrities who’ve become farmers now appears transcended by the ambition (and sometimes talent) of agriculture’s home-grown YouTube enthusiasts, and between them they’ve done a lot of good taking our message to the wider public.

However, it is ironic that it has taken Jeremy Clarkson, a highly skilled celebrity journalist and self-confessed “inept townie”, to show the general public how hard our chosen profession actually is.

Sure, Countryfile has the heartwarming stories and picturesque views, but I can’t think of anyone else who could make the mundanity of trailer hitches, skinned knuckles, TB testing and sideloading a combine appeal to the masses. I really don’t think I would have anything to add to this genre.

There is a certain allure in thinking we’d all be good communicators, just as some seem to think that anyone can “do” farming.

I have a good friend who is a dentist and at the weekends likes dabbling in animal husbandry on his smallholding.

I told him that at quiet times, if he’d lend me some kit, I’d quite like to play at being a dentist and he was predictably affronted, telling me how many years it took him to train as a fully qualified tooth puller.

Whereas of course farming’s dead easy, anyone can have a go at that…

Apart from an occasional farm tour and regular educational visits, now and then I get asked to do a few public talks – I’m working on one for the local civic society right now.

I’d freely admit I get a buzz at the challenge of trying to be informative and entertaining, plus the junkie’s dopamine hit when the audience comes on side or laughs at a joke.

But I still think the thrills of actually doing the job far outweigh the enjoyment of talking about it.

I may have been over-egging it slightly, but by the end, when you’re sleep deprived, knackered and finding dust in a multitude of orifices, the sense of achievement is hard to beat

A friend whose farm is run by contractors recently expressed envy when I told him I was looking forward to this harvest – one man, a socket set and a combine nearing its sell-by date versus the forces of nature and fate.

OK, I may have been over-egging it slightly, but by the end, when you’re sleep deprived, knackered and finding dust in a multitude of orifices, the sense of achievement is hard to beat.

Even if I was one of the more talented and presentable amongst us, while I take pride in the farmers’ ability to master a wide range of trades, I’d probably be so close to the trees that I couldn’t see the wood.

So I’m afraid our farm’s debut on the world stage will have to wait.

If I have any urgent desire to get a message across to the outside world they’ll just have to spend their £4.60 and find it in the pages of this august publication.