I’m a farmer. About as much of a farmer as you can get actually, with almost every branch of my family connected to agriculture, and a family history of farming in this area stretching back hundreds of years. I have a deep love and affection for our industry, with it’s flaws and imperfections, and it’s triumphs and resilience. So it was with all this in mind that I decided in early 2017 to start interviewing fellow farmers and various people involved in the agricultural industry to talk about the cool and interesting things they were doing, and share it with the wider world, and Rock & Roll Farming Podcast was born.

A good friend of mine put me forward for the digital innovator of the year in 2017, and I was absolutely thrilled to be shortlisted amongst some other really fantastic nominees. It was completely unexpected, and not something I would have ever dreamt of being involved in. I certainly didn’t expect to win the thing! I’ve seen video footage of the moment when the winner was announced, and the look on my face was priceless. All I can really remember was the rest of the table, which were all friends who I’d interviewed for the podcast, erupting with cheering. It was an indescribable feeling, and extremely emotional.

We celebrated hard afterwards! If you’ve never been to the British Farming Awards, it’s quite the night, with lots of dancing, and a fantastic time to be had. It was an incredible feeling to be one of the winners, and have so many people congratulating me, and I certainly won’t ever forget the night. Well, most of it anyway.

It’ll be two years soon since I won the award, and the podcast is still going strong, with thousands of listeners every week from all around the World. It goes to show the high level of interest there is in food and the people who are producing it. Some of the guests have been incredible, and by opening up about things like mental health problems they’ve had, have really helped others to realise they’re not struggling alone. This is the single best thing about the whole thing. Winning the award really gave me the confidence to push on with it, and I’m part of a team who’ve just launched a new project called Eat Farm Now, where we’re bringing together farming and food related content, whether videos, podcasts or blogs, from all around the world all together on one site, and we’re hoping to inspire the next digital innovators.