June 7, 2026 • 6 mins
Our UK correspondent says the drought is over, thanks to a Lords Cricket test and Wimbledon on the horizon. We also look at diversification from unprofitable arable farming and whether Andy Burnham will be the next British PM.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Here's a UK farm and correspondent, social media influencer farmer,
Tom Martin. And last time I chatted to you, Tom,
you were desperately dry. Of course you're in your spring
starting out the summer months. Of course since we've chatted,
we've had a cricket test at Lord's. We won't mention
the result. There's another one at the Oval next week,
remembering your farming just up the road from London, and
(00:22):
of course Wimbledon's about to happen. So drought over? Can
we declare it over?
Speaker 2 (00:27):
We've definitely had some rain. We've definitely had some rain,
and we've had some rain across the whole of the country,
not a huge amount of this stage, very isolated showers.
So they had an inch and a half thirty five
mil of rain about ten miles from here on the
same day that we had four millimeters. So some people
have been lucky and some people less so. But we're
(00:47):
still way behind where we'd normally be. I think some
of the crop yields will have been impacted here in
the east already, so the winter stone crops, this is
a time when they really need to be putting on
weight and this is where their yel comes in, and
a lot of the springstone crops didn't really get away,
The springstone barley wheats, those kind of things didn't really
(01:10):
get away with a very very dry start. So there'll
already be a yell penalty there as well, but certainly
a little bit happier than I was when we last
about Jenny and all us.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
On top of largely poor prices for grain as well.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
It's a bit of a shocker, isn't it, particularly particularly
those for those grain grain farmers like myself. I mean,
when we three years ago we had the start of
the Ukraine War, we saw fuel prices jump up and
fertilizer as well. But at the same time that was
you know, we had grain prices that were between kind
(01:45):
of sixty and ninety percent higher than they are now,
and so that was kind of rewarding that those high
fuel and high fertilizer prices. Now we're in the kind
of worst of both worlds where we've got the high
input prices and low selling prices. All we need now
is is a stormy harvest and there'll be a lot
(02:06):
of people in a spot of other We.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Talked last time, we chatted about diversification have you furthered
that discussion any further? Does that make sense?
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Sort of? Does? Yeah? Do you know? I've got I've
got my I'm hosting a reunion next weekend for the
for the course, the Agricultural Business Management course. So I
went on a few years ago with the Worship Company
of Farmers and we're basically focusing on on diversification. The
opportunities for growth and profit within broad scale arable agriculture
(02:35):
is so slim I think I think businesses will be
will be relying on diversification. So we're visiting a number
of sites. You were pleased to know risk reading in
a vinyard and the brewery, but looking at looking at
on farm diversifications and how we can basically how we
can stare afloat.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Well, don't start a venuyard or a brewery, because the
wine industry and the craft brewing industry here in New
Zealand anyhow certainly got their struggles.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
At the moment, we're in a we're in a sunny
place in England for wine in particular, where climate change
is serving us pretty well. One of my I've been
trying some great great English wines recently. We're very close
to the Rutnam Vineyard, which is an absolutely fantastic place,
started to started about five years ago, already making award
(03:23):
winning whites and roses and reds and sparkle it. I
mean literally, we're in a great We're in a great spot,
those wonderful that kind of wonderful climatic range that in
the past has allowed Champagne to produce what fantastic sparkling wine.
Is migrating north towards the Poles with climate change and
putting us in pole position to stick it to the French,
(03:45):
which is something that we love to do.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
You've been wanting to do for centuries. So while I
hope climate change comes to the party for one more
then and you get through that. On Scipe, we won't
mention the Lord's cricket Test wasn't too toughed about that result.
The other really interesting thing in the UK at the
moment is your politics, and this is really something that
has affecting farmers big time with the inheritance text. Now
(04:07):
Sakir Starmer is going to face a challenge by the
Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham, But first Burnham has to
win the Makerfield by election on June the eighteenth. Is
it a done deal that he will one it? Surely
it does.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
It's looking very like that, but it's you know, the
vote goes with the people, and the people will speak
and we'll see what happens. It could go either way.
And by either way, I mean we've got a lot
of parties buying for influence, if not power here in
the UK. But the two key parties there are the
kind of right leaning Reform Party and obviously the left
(04:43):
leaning Labor Party. Andy Burnham is the Labor mayor of
Manchester and he's now pitching in. One of the Labor
MP's for the Makeerfield constituency stepped aside. He stepped down
so that they could trigger that that local election and
Andy Burnham could stand. Now, you've got to put yourself
in the position of the people of Makerfield. You know
there'll be some who will be staunch reform and staunch Labor.
(05:06):
But if you're a floating voter, you've got to think
do you want to have Andy Burnham as your local MP.
He's going to make a challenge on the Labor leadership.
Now that could mean you have the prestige of having
potentially the fruiture future Prime Minister as your local member
of Parliament. But equally, if you want to get stuff
done in your constituency, do you want to have the
(05:28):
Prime Minister as your local MP and never potentially never
see him or certainly have trouble of trouble getting kind
of influence of the local areas. So it's going to
be a very very interesting thing. It's a little bit
of a pre run of the election in a couple
of years time, where I think Reform will be strong
and Labor well, we'll just see what happens with them.
So it'll certainly be very interesting. And Keir Starmer is
(05:52):
in the strange situation of obviously wanting Labor to succeed,
but perhaps not wanting somebody who's all He said on
his ticket that he's going to challenge for the Labor
leadership and therefore to be Prime Minister of the UK
as soon as he's were he to be elected.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
Stunning times and British politics. Hey, I'm just about out
of time, tom as I said, I don't want to
talk about the Lord's cricket test. I was going to
talk to you about the friendly and the football soccer
World Cup. England one Harry Caine Header, the All Whites Noll.
You don't even know anything about it, but I did
say to you that I watched a really interesting doco
over the weekend, I think, on Netflix about Vinnie Jones,
(06:32):
the soccer hooligan who became a movie star.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Now, now, Jamie, I think we call that filibustering, which
is just filling the time so they can't talk about
the important things. But maybe next time we can talk
about the next Test match.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Yeah, the Oval. Bring it on. Farmer Tom Martin, thank
you very much for your time from the UK.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Thank you, Jerry
Here's a UK farm and correspondent, social media influencer farmer,
Tom Martin. And last time I chatted to you, Tom,
you were desperately dry. Of course you're in your spring
starting out the summer months. Of course since we've chatted,
we've had a cricket test at Lord's. We won't mention
the result. There's another one at the Oval next week,
remembering your farming just up the road from London, and
(00:22):
of course Wimbledon's about to happen. So drought over? Can
we declare it over?
Speaker 2 (00:27):
We've definitely had some rain. We've definitely had some rain,
and we've had some rain across the whole of the country,
not a huge amount of this stage, very isolated showers.
So they had an inch and a half thirty five
mil of rain about ten miles from here on the
same day that we had four millimeters. So some people
have been lucky and some people less so. But we're
(00:47):
still way behind where we'd normally be. I think some
of the crop yields will have been impacted here in
the east already, so the winter stone crops, this is
a time when they really need to be putting on
weight and this is where their yel comes in, and
a lot of the springstone crops didn't really get away,
The springstone barley wheats, those kind of things didn't really
(01:10):
get away with a very very dry start. So there'll
already be a yell penalty there as well, but certainly
a little bit happier than I was when we last
about Jenny and all us.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
On top of largely poor prices for grain as well.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
It's a bit of a shocker, isn't it, particularly particularly
those for those grain grain farmers like myself. I mean,
when we three years ago we had the start of
the Ukraine War, we saw fuel prices jump up and
fertilizer as well. But at the same time that was
you know, we had grain prices that were between kind
(01:45):
of sixty and ninety percent higher than they are now,
and so that was kind of rewarding that those high
fuel and high fertilizer prices. Now we're in the kind
of worst of both worlds where we've got the high
input prices and low selling prices. All we need now
is is a stormy harvest and there'll be a lot
(02:06):
of people in a spot of other We.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Talked last time, we chatted about diversification have you furthered
that discussion any further? Does that make sense?
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Sort of? Does? Yeah? Do you know? I've got I've
got my I'm hosting a reunion next weekend for the
for the course, the Agricultural Business Management course. So I
went on a few years ago with the Worship Company
of Farmers and we're basically focusing on on diversification. The
opportunities for growth and profit within broad scale arable agriculture
(02:35):
is so slim I think I think businesses will be
will be relying on diversification. So we're visiting a number
of sites. You were pleased to know risk reading in
a vinyard and the brewery, but looking at looking at
on farm diversifications and how we can basically how we
can stare afloat.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Well, don't start a venuyard or a brewery, because the
wine industry and the craft brewing industry here in New
Zealand anyhow certainly got their struggles.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
At the moment, we're in a we're in a sunny
place in England for wine in particular, where climate change
is serving us pretty well. One of my I've been
trying some great great English wines recently. We're very close
to the Rutnam Vineyard, which is an absolutely fantastic place,
started to started about five years ago, already making award
(03:23):
winning whites and roses and reds and sparkle it. I
mean literally, we're in a great We're in a great spot,
those wonderful that kind of wonderful climatic range that in
the past has allowed Champagne to produce what fantastic sparkling wine.
Is migrating north towards the Poles with climate change and
putting us in pole position to stick it to the French,
(03:45):
which is something that we love to do.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
You've been wanting to do for centuries. So while I
hope climate change comes to the party for one more
then and you get through that. On Scipe, we won't
mention the Lord's cricket Test wasn't too toughed about that result.
The other really interesting thing in the UK at the
moment is your politics, and this is really something that
has affecting farmers big time with the inheritance text. Now
(04:07):
Sakir Starmer is going to face a challenge by the
Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham, But first Burnham has to
win the Makerfield by election on June the eighteenth. Is
it a done deal that he will one it? Surely
it does.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
It's looking very like that, but it's you know, the
vote goes with the people, and the people will speak
and we'll see what happens. It could go either way.
And by either way, I mean we've got a lot
of parties buying for influence, if not power here in
the UK. But the two key parties there are the
kind of right leaning Reform Party and obviously the left
(04:43):
leaning Labor Party. Andy Burnham is the Labor mayor of
Manchester and he's now pitching in. One of the Labor
MP's for the Makeerfield constituency stepped aside. He stepped down
so that they could trigger that that local election and
Andy Burnham could stand. Now, you've got to put yourself
in the position of the people of Makerfield. You know
there'll be some who will be staunch reform and staunch Labor.
(05:06):
But if you're a floating voter, you've got to think
do you want to have Andy Burnham as your local MP.
He's going to make a challenge on the Labor leadership.
Now that could mean you have the prestige of having
potentially the fruiture future Prime Minister as your local member
of Parliament. But equally, if you want to get stuff
done in your constituency, do you want to have the
(05:28):
Prime Minister as your local MP and never potentially never
see him or certainly have trouble of trouble getting kind
of influence of the local areas. So it's going to
be a very very interesting thing. It's a little bit
of a pre run of the election in a couple
of years time, where I think Reform will be strong
and Labor well, we'll just see what happens with them.
So it'll certainly be very interesting. And Keir Starmer is
(05:52):
in the strange situation of obviously wanting Labor to succeed,
but perhaps not wanting somebody who's all He said on
his ticket that he's going to challenge for the Labor
leadership and therefore to be Prime Minister of the UK
as soon as he's were he to be elected.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
Stunning times and British politics. Hey, I'm just about out
of time, tom as I said, I don't want to
talk about the Lord's cricket test. I was going to
talk to you about the friendly and the football soccer
World Cup. England one Harry Caine Header, the All Whites Noll.
You don't even know anything about it, but I did
say to you that I watched a really interesting doco
over the weekend, I think, on Netflix about Vinnie Jones,
(06:32):
the soccer hooligan who became a movie star.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Now, now, Jamie, I think we call that filibustering, which
is just filling the time so they can't talk about
the important things. But maybe next time we can talk
about the next Test match.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Yeah, the Oval. Bring it on. Farmer Tom Martin, thank
you very much for your time from the UK.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Thank you, Jerry
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