Against the Odds The Farmers' Country Showdown

Across the country,

thousands of farming families work tirelessly around the clock.

Bring them up, Isobel. Well done.

-Here they come.

-Shake it, baby, shake it.

-But there's one day each year...

-Come on, girl. Up you go.

..where they get to leave the daily routine behind.

Yahoo!

These are show days.

Welcome to the Pembrokeshire County Show.

They come together as a community...

Salute!

..to showcase the fruits of their labour...

Had a quick look at the competition. I'm in with a chance.

..and try to win prizes for their breed champions...

Well done. Wa-hey!

It's show business, folks.

..and award-winning produce.

I got first!

You can have the last two jars.

There'll be highs...

-..and lows...

-No! No! No!

..for the dedicated farmers who give everything to walk away a champion.

No way!

In the agricultural calendar, there is one event that showcases the

drive and determination of Britain's farmers.

The British Farming Awards.

This thing can put 20,000 eggs over it in an hour.

The Against The Odds category has five outstanding farms short-listed

-as finalists.

-Milking our 370 cross-bred cows -

they look after us, so we're looking after them.

All earning their place on that short list, they share a strength

and resilience which has caught the attention of the judges...

A lot of people probably look at us and think we're mad, really.

..but they're facing tough challenges with little or no support...

Here you go.

..or entering agriculture for the first time.

It's not that bad, really, when you get views like this.

It's quite incredible.

Each of the five are striving to carve out a slice of farming life.

Single greatest talent you need to be in farming

is to be multi-talented.

Winning here will validate years of hard work, tenacity and passion.

Nestled in Cumbria's Lake District are our first nominees -

30-somethings David and Rebecca Corrie-Close.

This ambitious young couple has built a specialist beef company on

wild tracts of land not normally used to run cattle.

We're very new to farming, we've only been doing this for two years.

We're not from A farming background,

we haven't got any formal farming qualifications,

so this is our way into farming.

Pursuing a farming life was definitely a joint decision.

It didn't take a lot of convincing when I said that I want to be a

-farmer and, what do you think?

-I said "yes" straight away, I think.

When we first started, we put in tenders for pieces of land

and farms and we weren't successful.

But I think in hindsight, we're probably glad that we didn't get a

-lot of those options.

-We've had a lot of noes.

Forced to think outside the box, they tried a new approach.

Without any land or infrastructure, they decided they would try

conversation grazing, which involves using cattle to

manage protected sites and safeguard wildlife.

We call it farming with nature,

because we think that better describes what it is that we do.

We've got some cattle over in the distance here

and they need to be moved into this new bit of grazing.

I mean, you can see this kind of land is not your normal kind of farmland.

It's quite diverse.

A few months ago this would've been covered in wild flowers.

Hey, lads. Good boy.

So this is Hotpot.

He was the first one to be born on our holding and so we decided it

would be a good idea to try and name him something

that he'll end up being.

The reason we got into farming is because we wanted to better

understand land management.

Farmed landscape in the UK is 70% of the land area or something like that.

So our actions as farmers can change the landscape for the better.

Good boy.

David and Rebecca now manage 1,000 acres across 15 sites owned by

different landlords.

Come on.

So we've got about 80 head of cattle now.

Come on, lads.

They're all native hardy breeds - so Highland, Shetland,

Long horn - and they thrive in these kind of conditions.

As a qualified zoologist, Rebecca knows about animal welfare.

Come on. Good boys. Come on.

But their unusual farming methods have attracted scepticism.

We're putting cattle up on the fells during the winter,

which is... People saying, "What?!"

Some people think we're mad.

But then they see them come off the fells after winter and looking at

-them and they realise...

-Maybe we're not so mad.

Today, they're moving some of their herd to a field that has just been mowed.

This is so the cattle can graze on the bits that couldn't be reached.

-Well done, you lot.

-Come on, sweetheart.

Pleased to be in a big open space again.

Good boy.

They've had fantastic diet and they've been handled gently.

There's no stress involved at all, throughout their whole lives.

That ultimately has an impact on the meat that you eat.

The biggest challenge managing 80 cattle across 15 sites

is keeping track of it all.

All of our sites are spread throughout south Cumbria.

We spend a lot of time in the car going between the different cattle

and checking them.

So we're going to Arnside Knott, a National Trust-owned property.

It's about 40 acres of quite tricky terrain.

With animals free roaming on such extensive land,

David and Rebecca need help to track them down.

Luckily, there's an app for that!

So do you want to check on your phone where they are?

-Yes.

-They're probably sheltering in the trees last night with all that rain.

You're right, they're at the top.

Come on, then, dogs.

It's quite new technology.

There aren't that many people using it to track cattle,

but for us, it just works.

A shame technology isn't always what it's cracked up to be.

So they've covered quite a bit of distance since that last reading,

haven't they? So it's a bit of a walk.

Come on, boys.

In the five minutes since the app updated,

the cattle have decided to wander off.

So this is what it tends to be like,

is walking round a lot trying to find them,

but it's not that bad, really, when you get views like this.

It's quite incredible.

So it requires a lot of effort physically,

using modern technology and traditional mechanical means.

-Rebecca?!

-Yeah?

-They're over here.

-OK.

Found them after a bit of a search.

But thank God we have the tracking collar on them because they're deep

in the woods, here.

Hi, lads.

Keeping nice and cool in here?

We operate on gut feeling a lot of the time and, to us, this feels right.

This feels like the kind of farming we want to be doing.

Most people will go, "Where's the grass, what are they eating?"

They'll eat brambles. Leaves from trees.

The animals are thriving in this type of habitat.

They look fantastic.

They've only just begun,

but this determined young couple know where they're heading.

We want to carry on building the success of our business.

And the way that we farm and being able to demonstrate that farming

with nature can work.

The couple's passion and ingenuity has helped them overcome the

obstacles they've faced.

Their perseverance makes them ideal nominees

for the Against The Odds award.

It's fantastic to have been short-listed.

We do feel every single day that what we're doing is against the odds.

We're fighting, we're working really hard to make this happen.

Hopefully other people who aren't from a farming background

can think, if they've done it, then why can't we do it, too?

230 miles south,

Devonian brothers Wayne and Elliott

are organic dairy farmers and our second finalists.

-We get on very well, always have.

-Brilliant.

-Yeah.

-Wonderful. Couldn't wish for better.

-You love me, don't you?

46-year-old Wayne and 34-year-old Elliott inherited the farming bug

from their father.

Farming was definitely always something from an early age,

from five years old.

-All we were ever going to do.

-All we was ever going to do, really.

But life didn't play out as they had hoped.

And they weren't able to inherit their father's farm.

Not put off by this obstacle, the brothers continued on,

and managed to rent 320 acres of fields with nothing on them.

Love stock work, I love working with animals.

And we've always milked cows, so dairy and farming seemed the obvious choice.

It was right at the time when milk had crashed, the market had crashed,

and most people were getting out of it, not thinking about going in.

Eventually the brothers secured a contract with an organic milk buyer.

We weren't fully organic for basically two years,

so in that two-year process is when each hurdle

had to be cleared, basically.

Come here, Rodney. Rodney.

When you haven't got anything, everything's a challenge.

Yeah, we're very limited on machinery and everything that goes

with so-called normal farming, I suppose.

But milking on rented land with no buildings or infrastructure was an

almost impossible task.

That is, until the boys came up with an idea of a mobile parlour,

built out of an old articulated truck.

A genius move.

When we want to move this in the winter or whenever,

it just folds up on the sides, we can hook the tractor into it and...

..away we go.

However, there were no guarantees the cows would take to it.

We did wonder, what is this going to be like?

Are we going to be able to get them on it?

Surprisingly, they just went up.

-It was all fairly stress-free, wasn't it?

-Yes.

-What we had come up with was actually working.

-Yes.

Everything has been a challenge.

There have been times when you do think, what have we done?

And a lot of people probably look at us and think we're

-blooming mad, really.

-Yes.

I guess you stick your feet in and you think,

-"No, we'll show you it can be done."

-And we will make it work.

-Yes.

And we will make it work with what we've got to work with.

They now milk 140 cows, and have ambitions to grow their herd

through breeding their own stock.

I think there's about 45 in this mob here.

They're our first cows we've had on our, you know...

-Home-grown stock.

-Yes.

It's lovely to see some nice animals walking round the field eating

grass and all fit and healthy and watching them grow, really, isn't it?

-Yes.

-Like your kids.

As if milking and running a dairy herd isn't enough work,

the brothers keep pushing forward with all areas of the business.

Elliott still goes out shearing.

We go out fencing, as well, for other people.

Just to keep it coming in at the minute while it's...

While it's getting going, really.

The only thing with this milking parlour is there's not massive

amounts of room in it.

Working together requires a special kind of relationship.

Not a lot said, plenty of grunting.

Sort of a telepathic thing between you two.

Get home very often, Tracey will say to me,

"What did Elliott say about this?" Or something like that.

I said, "I didn't ask him, really."

She said "Well, you've been with him all day."

Working every hour and saving every penny is a shared strategy to

achieve the family dream.

Elliott's got two small children and another one on the way.

It would be nice to perhaps see them, I suppose, occasionally,

-wouldn't it?

-Yeah.

Wayne and Elliott's combined determination to carry on their

father's legacy and pursue the dream to have their own farm

is the reason the judges short-listed them for the

Against The Odds award.

Getting this job actually up and running would be one of my biggest

achievements in my life, definitely.

But when you get somebody showing you a bit of recognition and to be

even put in for the British Farming Awards is,

yeah, yeah, huge, huge.

It's probably a good time to have a little chat about this,

the awards night, isn't it?

Who's going, who's not going?

Obviously, the milking is a bit of an issue, as well, isn't it?

There's a few things that are a bit of a problem.

And apparently not the least of their problems is getting Elliott to

scrub up for the night.

You'll definitely change, I expect, wouldn't you?

I might. Probably not a hair cut, I wouldn't have thought.

THEY BOTH LAUGH

580 miles north on the west coast of Scotland,

the striking hills of the Isle of Mull are home to our third

finalist, 44-year-old Iain MacKay.

Here you go.

Iain's path in life was decided in his teenage years when his family

farm was sold off.

I was only about 15 at the time.

And by that time I'd made my choice that, yeah, I wanted to be a farmer.

I wanted to own my own cattle, sheep, work for myself,

that's what I really wanted to do.

The biggest hurdle in farming is to find land.

Iain has had to face this problem over and over again.

I started up a contracting business, bought a tractor,

had a dog, and raised money and raised capital that way.

Then we got a wee bit of ground, about four acres, which was a start.

You know, it was really quite a happy day, I've got something.

But, unfortunately, I lost that.

And I had to give up the sheep and cattle.

Come on, Sky.

Iain didn't lose heart.

He started again with a dog and a tractor.

Sky, Sky, that'll do.

Look away, look away. Hup, hup!

We got another bit of ground which was actually in way of payment.

I got this ground for about three years, we tended to that piece.

And that again allowed me to build up.

But, unfortunately, that was lost, too.

Steady.

Sit! Sit!

Tenancy contracts can be short and, unless they are renewed,

every time the land is lost, all the animals have to be sold off.

Pip-pip.

You'd bred those,

so it was all blood lines that I knew and sheep that I knew.

So, that was, yeah, that was difficult to build up from again

because you don't know where the next chance is coming from.

Sit. Sit, stay there, stay there.

After losing his land and stock for a second time,

Iain was forced to change path.

I came out of the industry for a wee while and took a job building a

fish-food factory in the docks in Grangemouth,

which probably convinced me even more that I wanted to be back in the industry.

The single greatest talent you need, you know,

to be in farming, is to be multi-talented.

The range of skills you've got to have is so diverse.

I'm lucky enough to have a host of talent that I can call upon

when I need to.

Finally, his break came when he was doing some fencing jobs

on the Isle of Mull ten years ago.

I got a chance. My uncle was giving up about 500 acres

on just that hill, and I was given the opportunity to take that on.

I first of all said, "No, I'm not moving to an isle."

It was so far away, and I had contracts on the mainland.

I went home and I thought about it and I thought, "Well, why not?"

With just under 2,000 sheep and 150 cattle,

with 8,000 acres of tenancy land,

Iain has come a long way from his early days.

There's 3,000 hectares so getting around all that isn't easy.

We bring the sheep in off the hill six times a year.

It can take a fortnight, three weeks, to get them all in off the hill.

Sit down, sit down. Stay there.

The thing I probably rely on as much as anything on the farm

is the dogs. Away.

That's a really, really important animal on the farm.

Without them, we couldn't get the sheep off the hills.

It was a real roller-coaster ride, building my business.

I was on a treadmill that was getting faster

and faster all the time, that's what I felt.

And it was getting steeper and steeper all the time.

But now I feel that I'm actually farming now.

Iain now works together with his partner, Claire,

who is just as passionate as he is about farming.

-That last one was 71 kilos.

-That's good.

Claire is also up for an award.

She's been short-listed for the Agricultural Student Category.

I feel really lucky to have Claire here because she wants to drive this

business forward. I mean, the whole end goal is we'd really like to try

and own a farm eventually.

Determined to keep building the farm, Iain has started selling

premium-quality beef to butchers down south.

I went to London promoting a business idea that myself and three

others have had about trying to maximise the return you get from

your product, taking it from the field right through to the plate.

And now we're supplying meat down to some of the best butchers in London.

Iain's persistence in getting to where he is today,

despite all the obstacles,

is why he's short-listed in the Against The Odds category.

Too many people just complain about something,

and they like to whinge about it, but they sit on their backside.

And you actually took a proactive approach and you kept trying.

To get through to the final five, it is quite something.

I would love to win it but getting this far,

it's really rewarding to me personally.

-You should be proud.

-Mm.

Just over 250 miles south in North Wales,

the Llyn Peninsula is home to our fourth finalist, Matthew Jackson.

A city boy by birth,

29-year-old Mancunian Matthew has been a farmer for 13 years.

We're here this morning milking our 370 cross-bred cows.

Yeah, looking after the girls because it's been some rough

weather, and they look after us so we're looking after them.

Come on, girls.

His love for farming first started on a holiday in the Welsh countryside.

The interest began when I was staying on the local farm about two

miles down the road from here, and Mum and Dad bringing us camping.

Back home in the city,

Matthew found a part-time job in a nearby farm but his past-time didn't

help him to fit in at school.

I wasn't exactly popular.

Stinking of silage, into a class of 35, 40 kids,

it's quite embarrassing going back to that

because none of them understood it.

They were probably thinking I was wasting my time, you know.

I don't know, I don't know.

Come on, girlies. Come on, girls, out you go.

By the age of 14, Matthew had made up his mind about his future.

I was hopeless at getting up for school,

but good for getting up for the farm, you know?

As soon as I was 15, I said to Mum and Dad I wanted to leave school

a year early and not take my GCSEs or anything.

And they weren't too pleased about that.

Come on, girls, come on.

From then on, nothing could stop him.

I came here and followed that path that I wanted to.

As soon as I got a taste of working for somebody that actually

appreciated you and paid you fairly,

that actually spurred me on to think this could really be somewhere,

to get into this industry and I could actually really progress.

I just enjoyed what I was doing. You know, I loved what I was doing.

From 16, I could literally do whatever I wanted.

You know, nobody was there telling me what I could and couldn't do, really.

Well, nobody except one person.

I used to work at the local pub and he used to come in, and, yeah,

we just hit it off, I think.

We hit it off because Mari used to come outside to me and check if

there was vodka in my drink, when I was 16, you see.

-And look at us now, eh?

-Yeah, I used to take him out of the pub.

Now I'm checking if there's vodka in Mari's drink!

Matthew and Mari have been together for 13 years and they have three

children who they believe also benefit from the farming life.

It's nice for the kids to grow up in such a lovely environment.

We're really lucky, the situation we're in.

I get to see the kids before they go to school, and when they're in

nursery and stuff I'll see them through the day maybe

three or four times. I'm in and out of the house, popping in and out.

And that's even before bed, as well.

They'll come to the milking parlour to see us.

See you later.

Ta.

Mari's very family-orientated.

She's been behind me all the way.

She can remember when we started, living in a caravan

and then a shack, and then getting our first house.

I am absolutely driven by the business and by constant challenge.

Against the odds, this city boy has built a business up from nothing.

I started to buy my own heifer calves.

So, I bought 20, sold them the following year and that was all

from my wages and doing this between my hours in work.

I bought the 20, sold them the following year, and so forth,

and by year four, I was up to 220 head.

Today, he's got 375 milking cows, and 240 young calves,

on a shared farm of 240 acres that belongs to his former boss.

He owns the land and the infrastructure on the farm,

and I own the stock on the farm.

Share farming is built on trust,

and we've both got respect for each other,

and we both have a very good relationship,

and that's the most important part of it.

There are 21 fields on the farm that are regularly checked so that cows

can get the freshest pasture.

They're cross-bred cows.

They give high milk solids.

The milk we send typically goes into cheese,

so high protein and high fat.

What gives the milk its high-protein value is Matthew's impressive

attitude to grass management.

Every week, Matthew diligently measures the grass quality of each field.

Weighing samples is key to the all-important decision

of whether it's ready to be consumed or not.

It's Matthew's incredible journey from city boy to successful farmer

that has made him one of this year's finalists.

It's the New Entrants award that I've been nominated for,

and it's Against The Odds.

Really, though, we're all against the odds, you know?

I'm no different to anybody else because all I've done is gone out,

worked hard and built this.

To win something like this would be fantastic, as in, to build my profile.

I'm trying to be recognised by young people that want to progress into

the industry from non-farming or farming backgrounds.

So, any publicity I can get to entice young people into agriculture,

that's exactly what I'm trying to do,

and give back what I've had given to me.

Stuff that you can't buy, money can't buy, really.

Up in north-east Scotland, the village of Clochan

is home to our final nominees - Gordon and June Whiteford.

Gordon's nomination is the realisation of his lifelong dream.

As a new entrant, you can't compete with big farmers.

So you have to find other ways of doing it and find your own niche.

With no land to farm, and no bank who'd invest in him,

Gordon found a low-cost route into farming.

I started looking at hens because, hens, you don't need much ground,

and also a good cash flow.

As soon as you've got eggs, you've got money coming in,

you've got a product to sell.

Unlike starting off with beef and sheep - it's a very long period

before you're actually generating any money.

Gordon's wife, June, is an A&E doctor.

Here, Sky.

As well as looking after their 18-month-old son, Alexander,

she finds time away from the front line to help on the farm.

When I think back to when Gordon and I first got together in 2009,

it was completely different.

He just had 6,000 hens and a rented field.

From the beginning, they knew this life would be hard.

2009, obviously, the recession came along.

Organic egg sales really started to drop off.

We went from having a contract where our eggs all went off in that lorry

twice a week, to finding ourselves in a position where we were having

to build up our own customers and pack them ourselves.

So, every weekend, we were off at the farmers' markets trying to shift all these eggs.

Choosing the right hens was the first step in creating a successful business.

Gordon picked some birds for their special characteristics.

They're slightly smaller, they eat less, they're more

disease-resistant, and I think they're more suited to free-range.

They went out of fashion in the UK way back in the '60s and '70s.

And we were one of the first people to take white hens back into

free-range. Erm... Their eggs are actually a better quality.

The welfare of these birds is so important that Gordon has built a

whole playground for them.

If the hens are stressed, then we get poor-quality eggs,

we get wrinkly eggs.

I don't get paid for them. They're no use to me.

So it's good to give the hens something to scratch about in.

The more things you can give them to play with, to do,

to keep them occupied, the better, better welfare for the hens.

While his birds are having fun, Gordon can't afford the luxury of a rest.

Farming is 365 days of the year.

It doesn't matter if it's Christmas Day or you've got a wedding to go to.

The welfare of livestock is absolutely...

-Paramount.

-..paramount.

It's a bit like having children.

Not even their own child's birth warranted a break.

Alexander was born at two o'clock in the morning.

Gordon stayed with me for a couple of hours,

and then it was pretty much straight back outside back to work because it

was lambing time. So those girls couldn't wait either.

Thanks to his hard work, today, Gordon runs one of the most

successful independent egg farms in Scotland

with more than 14,000 hens.

Last year, we won the Scottish Egg Quality Awards

with our organic eggs, and we came runner-up this year.

We produce good-quality eggs.

We're always trying to grow the business and expand,

trying to add value to what we've got.

So we've just put in new packing shed up, and a new grader.

There's only about 13 machines of this size in the UK.

We first started grading eggs over a small table-top grader.

You'd put a few hundred eggs over it in an hour.

This thing can put 20,000 eggs over it in an hour.

I always laugh when I think back and it was all afternoon spent grading

four stacks.

And we thought that was us busy!

Better spending time with the hens, not grading and packing eggs.

You know, that's just taking away time from looking after the hens.

But the chickens were always a stepping stone to achieve something bigger.

In 2012, the opportunity of a ten-year tenancy came up

and it was a game-changer.

It's still quite a small farm, but it's, you know,

it's enough to do something with it and keep cattle and sheep.

We mill our own feed on the farm. So we grow a bit of that feed.

It eventually gets fed to the hens.

So it's keeping everything in the same loop.

It feels like a proper farm now, having cows on it.

Now we've got this fantastic opportunity, this farm,

we've added extra livestock, things have come on leaps and bounds.

And here we are, five years into our ten-year tenancy,

and I feel we're starting to outgrow this place now!

In total, we've got 70 ewes lambing in May.

We've got seven beef cows which are pets as much as anything.

And we've also got 69 dairy heifers which we bought as weaned calves and

we're rearing them up.

What we're trying to do is a mixed operation, and a bit of diversity.

His sheer determination to build something out of nothing,

despite the challenges, has made Gordon a natural nominee for this

year's Against The Odds award.

I think it's fair to say I'm very proud of what he's achieved.

It was one of the things that attracted me to him, actually,

it was just that determination that he had.

It's recognition for the hard work.

It gives the business more credibility,

it shows our customers that we're doing good stuff.

If we were to win the category, then it would be fantastic.

All five of these finalists deserve to win.

Their unwavering commitment to farming has encouraged them to

overcome impossible challenges.

And it's time to celebrate how far they have come.

Come on.

A prestigious award like this, winning it would be fantastic.

Come on, lads.

Everybody wants to win.

-You're in it to win.

-But we'll make sure we have a good night out.

-Yeah.

Looking forward to going out, it should be a good craic.

We don't go out very often, me and Mari, we don't have great social lives.

If we go out for a meal, it tends to be me sleeping on the table

by nine o'clock at night and her like this.

Sky, that'll do. Look away, look away.

I'm trying not to think about winning the award because, yeah,

it would mean... It would mean a huge amount.

I mean, getting into the final five, that's a huge reward itself.

There you go.

Yeah, I'll be happy enough with that.

But, of course, now that I'm here, you know,

the stakes have gone up a wee bit.

This year, it's Britain's second city, Birmingham,

that is hosting the British Farming Awards.

Over 700 farmers and industry professionals from across the UK are

coming together to celebrate their year-long accomplishments.

Places are filled, the stage is set.

We just need our special guests.

I love all the categories but I really do like

the New Entrants award because I can really appreciate the

struggles that these people have gone through.

I just admire their determination to make it happen.

That can't be underestimated. That is really something special.

Travelling from all corners of the UK,

our farmers are on their way to tonight's glitzy event.

Organic chicken farmers Gordon and June have swapped their farm scrubs

for more formal attire.

And even Alexander has made an effort.

Two or three days a year we get a chance to put the kilt on, so,

a bit of a change to get dressed up but I always feel comfortable in a

boiler suit, knee-height in muck.

More of a concern tonight might be staying up past bedtime.

All the way from the quiet and tranquillity of the Isle of Mull,

Iain has brought his partner Claire along,

but it's been more of a journey than predicted.

Not used to such a volume of traffic.

Traffic, three or four lines of traffic,

it's not that common in Mull, you know.

Any sort of traffic jam is usually caused by my cattle.

Dairy farmer Matthew Jackson and Mari are getting a much-deserved

night off from the farm.

Well, he's changed in the last few days so I think he's

starting to feel a bit anxious and nervous now about it, aren't you?

A little bit. Yeah. I'm a little bit nervous.

But that's normal, isn't it? It's a big deal, it's a big award.

For brothers Wayne and Elliott,

it's not only the farm they have left behind tonight.

My partner Suranna has had to go into hospital today to have our

third child, potentially. Definitely by tomorrow.

So I have to race back in the morning to see how that's going.

Nature farmers David and Rebecca are also expecting this evening.

We're having to drive home tonight, we've got a cow that's about to calve.

We've not got anybody helping at home.

We've got to come down here, do this, get back up there again.

Ladies and gentlemen, it's time to take your seat.

-Cheers, everybody!

-Cheers.

Cheers. Have a good night. Behave!

As for our five entrants,

they've all faced an uphill struggle to get to where they are now,

making it a very difficult category to judge.

The New Entrant award is specifically titled

Against The Odds because we believe that new entrants coming

into agriculture face a huge raft of challenges, not just about sourcing

land and sourcing funding, but dealing with red tape,

with paperwork, kind of everyday issues that happen in farming.

We had to really work hard at narrowing the entries down to

eventually find the calibre and quality that each of the five

finalists offer this year.

Good evening, and welcome to the British Farming Awards 2017!

With dinner eaten, it's time for the main event.

Now it's the bit you've all be waiting for.

There are 14 highly competitive and prestigious awards to be given out tonight.

Plus prizes for runners-up.

With so many awards to give out,

our farmers can only wait for their category with anticipation.

I didn't think I would feel nervous, but I do.

But we'll just wait and see how we go, really.

What will be, will be.

-It's getting close now, we're getting a bit excited, aren't we?

-Yeah.

I've got everything crossed.

And finally, the big moment.

Our next award is the New Entrants award, Against The Odds.

Given the tough thing that it is to get into this industry,

we should give all of these entrants a really big round of applause to start with.

And here goes, the shortlist.

David and Rebecca Corrie-Close, The Horned Beef Company.

APPLAUSE

Matthew Jackson, Penllech Bach.

APPLAUSE

Iain MacKay, Torloisk Farm.

APPLAUSE

Wayne Sanders and Elliott Prettejohn, WE Organic Dairies.

And Gordon and June Whiteford, Highland Eggs Scotland.

And the winner is...

..Matthew Jackson.

CHEERING

Well done.

Absolutely never in a million years thought I was going to get it

because I was up against some fantastic competition.

And, yeah, I suppose this will boost my self-confidence.

None of our farmers will be going home empty-handed.

And for Wayne and Elliott, it's the runners-up prize.

We've come a very nice silver place, didn't we?

Tomorrow he's going to have another baby.

And I'm going to have to milk the cows.

I'm on two weeks' paternity so you...

You don't get that.

You don't get paternity leave with this deal we've got going!

Why not?

It's been an amazing night.

We're disappointed not to have won but we're going away feeling

positive about the future of our business and the future

of farming in the UK.

I'm going to go home absolutely enthused, energised and, yeah,

maybe I'll think of another category and compete again!

It's been a fantastic night tonight, with the creme de la creme of the farming industry here.

So you can't not learn something.

It's quite inspiring speaking to some of these people.

Alexander's kilt has certainly been catching a few of the ladies' eyes,

-it's fair to say.

-I think he's...

-Had a few compliments.

He gets the prize for the best dressed today, tonight.

Although maybe not now that he's wearing some of the chocolate

dessert we had tonight which was very lovely.

It's the end of the evening for some of our farmers.

But, for the others, the night is still young.

This award will follow me to one of the schools in Manchester where I'll

show them just what can be done and what you can achieve from, you know,

from humble beginnings.

Super-proud, I couldn't be prouder.

It's nice that all this hard work now has been recognised,

and he thoroughly deserves this award. So, yeah, brilliant.