Keeping our cool
We can't control the weather. We can change how we farm. Reflections on heat, drought, wildlife, wildfire, livestock and preparing for whatever comes next.
Tom Martin
I am passionate about helping people to see what happens on the other side of the farm gate, about unity, community, and solutions rather than problems. And I love a chat!
Rural Britain is Best Understood Through a Train Window
Britain is best seen by train: not as a postcard, but in passing slices of limestone, reservoirs, barley, sidings, suburbs, back gardens and steel bones of tomorrow.
"I never leave the farm in May"
May is the farm at its most alive—light stretching, hedges bursting, birds singing. A month too beautiful, and too fleeting, to spend anywhere else.
Inside the High Court Battle to Save Family Farms
Step inside a dramatic High Court battle as farmers challenge sweeping inheritance tax reforms that could reshape the future of family businesses—discover what really unfolded inside the courtroom.
Cowboys and Corn; Visiting an American Farming Convention
Why would a British farmer fly to Missouri in winter? Because in one room sat forty years of hard-earned farming wisdom—and I wanted to listen.
Walk
What happens when you stop and walk a farm for a year? Owls appear, soil speaks, and farming looks very different.
Budget 2025, 2 weeks on.
A Budget preaching fairness but silent where buses don’t run and potholes have names — written for tomorrow while rural Britain waits today.
LIVESTREAM: What does the Budget mean for the countryside?
Join our livestream as we look at what Rachel Reeves' Budget statement means for nature, farming and rural communities
Scars
Scars are field notes written on skin: rough, imperfect, but proof a life was lived in full. Out here the land leaves its margin notes too—scratched in mud, inked by wire, pencilled by weather. Messy perhaps, but they make the story sing.
Reimagining National Service: From Conscription to Civic Revival
National service once meant barracks and boots. Today, could it mean barley fields, biodiversity, and belonging? We explore how a reimagined scheme might serve both people and countryside.
Have we LOST OUR MINDS about solar?
Are solar farms ruining the countryside — or saving it? From “they poison the earth” to “Britain’s too cloudy,” I’ve heard every myth. This isn’t a sales pitch. It’s a farmer’s eye view of what really happens when you mix solar panels, sheep and soil
From Lettuce to Longevity: Rethinking Health from the Ground Up
We’re in a health crisis—and the cure might be growing in a lettuce patch. Farmer Tom explores how farms, food, and nature could transform wellbeing, cut NHS costs, and heal the nation—if only policy had the appetite to try.