Mud, Sweat and Tears with Gareth Wyn Jones

I'm joined by a brilliant trio to talk about the most exciting thing to hit British farming in years. Chris Hughes is the festival producer behind the Great British Farm Fest — a man who took Jeremy Clarkson around the world with Top Gear Live and now wants to do the same for farming. Bizza Walters is a fourth-generation mixed farmer from Warwickshire and Farm Fest ambassador. And Damian Barson is a first-generation farmer who started at the age of 50 on the North Yorkshire Moors — and has absolutely no regrets.Together they discuss why British farming needs its own Glastonbury moment, what it really means to bridge the gap between farmers and the public, the power and frustration of social media, and why Gareth might just end up on the main stage at Stoneleigh Park.The Great British Farm Fest takes place 22–24 May 2026 at Stoneleigh Park, Warwickshire. 🎟️ Tickets at farm-fest.orgMud, Sweat and Tears is produced by Jet TV/Jet Pod Productions.

I'll be honest with you — I've had four hours sleep, I'm in the middle of lambing, and I still think this is one of the best conversations I've ever had. Welcome to the Energy Special.I've got four incredible guests around the table tonight, all with very different views, and I want to hear every single one of them. Paul Burgess has done nearly 300 videos on net zero and energy policy and he doesn't pull his punches. Jason Barker is an engineer and scientist living on a smallholding in mid Wales who's fighting to stop 500 wind turbines being built on the Cambrian Mountains — and he's now standing for the Senate to make his voice heard. Ben Plummer is an engineer and smallholder who builds his own off-grid energy systems. Jacob Taewa from SolarEdge is the man who helped get my own solar system up and running — and I'm now hitting 70-80% of my farm's electricity from renewables, even in winter. And John Devine from TCD Energy has saved me personally £7,000 on one contract alone — the energy market is a minefield and John knows how to navigate it.We get into everything. The best form of energy. Whether we should be drilling in the North Sea — and fracking. Why my fertiliser has just gone up £245 a tonne. The wind turbine scandal where turbines are being paid billions to switch off. Whether the Severn Barrage was ever a real option. How energy companies are getting away with murder on business contracts. And the big one — should we scrap net zero altogether?I go into this podcast a solar convert and I come out the other side with a lot more questions. That's exactly what Mud, Sweat and Tears is for. No bulls**t. Just facts, figures, and people who really know what they're talking about.

Right, this is probably the most important episode I've done yet. And I'm not exaggerating.I've had farmers - I couldn't tell you how many - sending me videos of them pouring thousands of litres of milk down the drain. Not a few hundred litres. Massive amounts. And every single one of them has said the same thing: "Please don't mention my name. Keep it anonymous." That's when I realised - dairy farmers are absolutely shit scared of their processors. Scared of losing their contracts. Scared of losing their businesses. That's no way to run an industry.So I'm sitting down with four dairy farmers who aren't scared to tell the truth: Kelly Seaton (first-generation farmer, Shropshire/Cheshire border), Jack Allwood (milking 1000 cows and running Mootrition vended milk), Diarmaid MacColgain (founder of Concept Dairy pricing platform), and Andrew Wright from Farm Theory.And did they tell me everything.We're talking about:• Why milk prices have collapsed (35 million extra litres globally every single day)• Why 55 farms had NO milk collection from Christmas Eve to New Year• The stranglehold processors and supermarkets have over farmers• Why the carbon audit agenda is being called "the biggest fucking scam ever"• What's really wrong with the NFU and why farmers need better representation• How political change could actually save British dairy farmingThis episode pulls no punches. There's strong language. There's controversial opinions. But this is the honest conversation the dairy industry desperately needs to have - the one processors and supermarkets don't want you to hear.If you drink milk, eat cheese, or care about British farming, you need to listen to this.Follow me on social media @garethwynjonesfarmerA Jet Pod Production#MudSweatAndTears #DairyFarming #MilkPriceCrisis #BritishFarming #GarethWynJones #FarmingPodcast #UKAgriculture #DairyIndustry #FarmersVoice

Right, so I've got four fantastic butchers on - Sharon Francis from Brecon, Apes (April) Westcott who runs a small deer and sheep butchery in Exmoor (with award-winning venison burgers) and two Robs (one's Frustrated Farmer, one's Roast Mutton from Cumbria) - and we're talking about the stuff everyone's afraid to discuss. First up: halal and kosher slaughter. Our panel of butchers want to see it banned. Listen and you'll find out why. We also get stuck into supermarket mislabeling, whether Britain should actually have a horsemeat trade (Sharon reckons it'd solve the horse welfare crisis), Then we absolutely tear into Veganuary - our panel report record January sales - turns out people tried veganism, got ill, and came straight back to meat. And we debate how to save the high street: charge supermarkets a quid for every parking space they've got and get people back to their local butchers.Oh, and we talk about how we like our meat cooked. Obviously.No filter - just people who work in this industry every day telling you the truth.TRY OUR BUTCHER'S MEAT! You can try Apes' award-winning farmed venison (they've been farming it for 40 years) by heading to https://www.facebook.com/april.westcott.31 or emailing her at www.lowerhookhill@gmail.comRob from Derbyshire is: https://frustratedfarmer.co.uk (and you can find his shop in Retford)Rob from Cumbria is https://roastmutton.co.uk/Sharen works with www.happyherefords.co.ukEnjoy and thanks for listening. Cheers, Gareth.Content Warning: This episode contains frank discussion of animal slaughter practices and opinions on religious slaughter.

Should Britain's farmers 'Go French' or even go on strike? In some countries farmers are 'treated like Gods' because they put food on the table? What is the situation here? Gareth chats with Kathleen Renner and Ed Beckett of FARMERS TAKE ACTION about the protesting and how farmers need to go to ensure that British people are fed with the nutritious food we have here in our own country.