‘I know how lucky I am, but there’s a lot of blood, sweat and tears behind the scenes as well’
Twenty years after Foot and Mouth Disease almost wiped out his farm business, BBC Countryfile presenter Adam Henson reflects on his career and the battle farmers everywhere are facing in the battle for the public’s hearts and minds
When Countryfile presenter Adam Henson and his business partner sat down around the kitchen table at the height of the Foot and Mouth Disease crisis in 2001, their farm's future was on the line.
"It was one of the most difficult times in my career," he recalls, explaining that the harsh restrictions imposed on farms at that time nearly cost his family everything.
Dubbed Britain's most famous farmer, Adam is a tenant farmer running a 1600ac holding in the Cotswolds, but his business extends far beyond traditional agriculture.
His father, Joe Henson, took on the tenancy in 1962 and a decade later founded Cotswold Farm Park to help protect some rare breeds of livestock.
Adam, who still lives with his family on the farm, said that after visitor numbers fell off in the late 1990s, he had invested heavily to upgrade facilities.
"Then, Foot and Mouth hit. We had to close the farm park and the fact that it hit in February, just before the season was about to start for us, meant it really hit us hard.
"We were in a very difficult situation. The landlord wanted the rent, our bank at the time was closing in on us and not offering any support. We were in a critical situation financially.
“I remember sitting around the kitchen table with my business partner wondering about what we would do. All our assets are tied up in the business and in the farm. We lived in rented houses on a rented property, and it looked like we might lose the whole lot. Terrifying, absolutely terrifying," he says.
The key issue was insurance as his policyholder would not pay out on business losses until the farm was officially directed to close by the Government.
"We caught between a rock and a hard place. Eventually, a farm nearby, sadly, caught foot and mouth.
"Then we could claim partially on the insurance and it was that really that kept us from going bankrupt.”
Pandemic
Twenty years on, he is battling the fallout from the Covid 19 pandemic
"The farm park has been in turmoil in the last 12 or 14 months, but thankfully the government this time have stepped in and helped business,” he says. “We hope to open the park again on April 12.”
Ironically, the Foot and Mouth Crisis was also the catalyst for his career in television.
"We thought we got to try and find other income streams rather than farming and that's why I applied for the Countryfile job.”
While he still finds it strange to be considered ‘famous’, he says it's flattering when people praise your work.
"90pc of it is people being really lovely. And I love meeting and talking to people. I enjoy it, but I don't revel in it because your private life to some degree is very exposed.
Adam says: "People don't come in with their arguments from an informed base. There's such a void of knowledge.”
"I've had a bit of flak as well that I have to deal with, particularly on social media, and people might not like what I am doing.”
He gets annoyed and sometimes upset when the flak is quite militant and vicious. This type of criticism usually comes with a lack of understanding of the real situation on farms, says Adam.
"People need to have a really good grounding on that argument. If you have soya milk on your cornflakes, do you know where that soya is coming from? Has it caused deforestation? Has it caused the displacement of indigenous people and the destruction of species?
"My milk is delivered from a lovely dairy just down the road, from a fantastic family who do loads of social support.
Knowledge
"People don't come in with their arguments from an informed base. There's such a void of knowledge.”
This really struck home to him last year after he took sheep into a local school in an effort to talk to the kids about where their food comes from.
"The headmaster said to me some of these kids would never have seen a sheep before. This was a deprived area of north Birmingham. These kids had literally never seen a sheep before. And that's in our society today. It's extraordinary really.”
Despite all his media work, Adam still describes himself as “a farmer number one.”
"On my passport, my occupation is farmer and always will be. The telly will get fed up with me one day and drop me in the bin and I'll just go back to being a farmer.”
Surrounding himself with really good people has been key to his success to date, he says.
Critics
"While I'm not out there getting my hands dirty all the time I am practically involved on the farm, but just not part of the daily team because I'm away so much and doing other things.”
Despite Countryfile remaining one of the most popular shows on BBC, farmers are among its most vocal critics.
Adam says farmers must realise the show is not necessarily targeted solely at farmers.
"These shows are designed for the general public. There are 6 million people watching Countryfile and just over 200,000 farms in the UK.
"Farmers watching the programme are saying: 'why are you talking to us like we're idiots again?' It's because I'm actually talking to an eighty-year-old or an eight-year-old who might be in a flat in Hackney. Farmers have got to realise that if we get any positivity about British farming on television, it's gotta be a good thing.”
While he dreams of owning his own farm, Adam says he'll never be able to afford a farm the size what he's got.
"You know, I've been here all my life. I live in the house I grew up in, it feels like home, but I don’t own it," he says.
"I live a lovely life, a fantastic family. My parents are now gone, but they were amazingly supportive when they were alive.
"I walk out of my back door and into the rolling Cotswold hills on a 1600ac farm. I am my own boss and you know that that is something to celebrate.
"I don't ever underestimate how lucky I am to be able to build that life for myself really, you know, following in my father's footsteps, but there is quite a lot of blood, sweat and tears as well that goes on behind the scenes. It's not all easy," he said.
Farm business built on a diversification and conservation ethos
Diversification is key to Adam Henson’s farming philosophy and the plethora of enterprises in which he’s engaged is testament to this.
His primary agricultural enterprise is arable farming, with over 1000 acres of his rented farm devoted to tillage.
He is also involved in a joint venture with a neighbouring farmer. This is harvesting about 4,000 acres of arable crops from across six different farms.
Many of the crops grown on the farm are processed locally to add value.
Oilseed rape and linseed are cold-pressed by another neighbour to produce rapeseed oil.
Adam also grows spring barley for whiskey and lager production, and his winter wheat is milled for bread. Malting barley is sold under a contract with a local brewery to produce labelled Adam Henson’s Rare Breed.
The sheep enterprise consists of a commercial flock of 350 Romney/Lleyn ewes producing lambs for the table and breeding stock.
The farm also specialises in wool which is processed by a mattress company in Yorkshire.
“We have our own brand of mattresses called Adam Henson mattresses, which are stuffed with wool from native British breeds’ wool, particularly the Cotswolds breed.
“I buy the wool at a good price from all the Cotswolds sheep producers in the UK — I pay them £1.50/kg at a time when wool is at 20p. It’s about getting the true value for their wool and encouraging them to keep these native breeds,” he says.
Conservation
The conservation of rare breeds is a critical part of the farm with 50 different breeds of seven different species.
“Cattle, sheep, pigs, goats, horses, donkeys, chickens, you name it, we’ve got it. It’s very much about rare breeds’ conservation and having a display for the Cotswolds Farm Park.”
The Farm Park has become a substantial business with about 160,000 visitors each year.
It includes a campsite with 60 pitches, six lodges that sleep up to six people, along with some glamping tents and pods.
The park also has a bar, restaurant, cafe and farm shop.
While few farmers can aspire to this extraordinary level of diversification, Adam says more farmers need to look at getting the most from their resources.
“I think if you’ve got all your eggs in one basket, to use the agricultural term, you’re high risk.
“I’m concerned about cheap imports, coming from abroad and not being able to compete unless we can really add value.
“If your animals or grain is going straight into the open market it is a commodity, and you’re hoping to see what you’ll get. I feel having different income streams helps secure the future of farming. There are lots of things you need to think about outside the box,” he adds.
