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IN TOUCH – Inclusive Farm

TX:Ìý 26.09.2023Ìý 2040-2100

PRESENTER:Ìý ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý PETER WHITE

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PRODUCER:ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý BETH HEMMINGS

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Farm noises

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White

Beautiful day, Mike.

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Duxbury

Superb.Ìý First beautiful sunshine day in a long time.

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White

Yeah.Ìý Have you had problem with the rains, does that make farming trickier?

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Duxbury

It does because handling a pig in the wet can be a bit slippery.

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White

So, this is your one acre of heaven basically.

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Duxbury

It’s my one acre of heaven.Ìý My man is just mowing the chicken paddock.Ìý We’ve just mowed this to get rid of all the weeds.

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White

Now even people who know a thing or two about blindness and visual impairment they probably don’t think in terms of many blind people actually being farmers, I mean do you know how rare you are?

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Duxbury

I am the only blind farmer in Britain.

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White

And it’s what you always wanted to do, yeah?

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Duxbury

Absolutely.Ìý And I’ve done for – oh blimey – 40 odd years of my life.

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White

Did people try to discourage you?

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Duxbury

Yes.Ìý Apparently, back in those days, ‘70s and ‘80s, blind people didn’t farm.Ìý They still don’t.Ìý But we can.

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White

Well Mike is Mike Duxbury, we’re on his farm, it’s an absolutely glorious day.Ìý So, do we get the guided tour?

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Duxbury

Yes, I will give you the tour.Ìý Where we’re at, at the moment, the top end of the farm, we have in front of us a series of paddocks running from left to right, we’re currently in one of the big ones or, well, standing by one of them.Ìý And this holds about 70 laying chickens and they lay about 30-40 eggs a day.Ìý But if we turn around and take a stroll back down the hill, we’ll stop at the different pens and if we’re a bit lucky we might even meet some of the inmates.

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White

Oh right.Ìý It’s all livestock farming?

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Duxbury

All livestock farming, yeah.

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White

Any particular reason for that?

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Duxbury

I think I feel the barleys not very cuddly.Ìý No, I love the interaction with livestock and I also love to see other people who come here interact with the livestock too.

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White

Well, shall we go and meet the pigs?

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Duxbury

Let’s go and meet the pigs, follow me.

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Come on, come on pigs.

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These are very young ones.Ìý They’re only eight, eight and a half weeks old.

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White

Right.

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Duxbury

So, they’ll stand about six inches high and they’ll grow up to about three foot high.Ìý I mean I will go in with these on a daily basis and it’ll go from running away to eventually can’t get them off you, you know.Ìý Hello pig, Peter, and this is his head end – he won’t bite you.

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White

Are you sure?

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Duxbury

No, he won’t, no he won’t.

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White

They kind of rough, they’re just sort of prickly dogs, aren’t they?

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Duxbury

Have you given him your hand?

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White

Yeah.Ìý Well, that’s a new…

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Duxbury

That’s a rubber nose.

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White

It is a little rubbery nose, isn’t it?Ìý That’s a first one for me.

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Duxbury

There we go.

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White

I’ve never stroked a pig before.

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Duxbury

So, we’re heading downhill here, Peter, and on my left now we’re coming up to probably the biggest paddock and I’m going to put your hand on the fence…

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White

Right.

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Duxbury

…and if you feel in front of you, in front there, that’s a cattle feeder.Ìý So, in here I’ve got two cows, they’re beef cattle and there’s Bruce, who’s a Hereford and Willis, who’s an Angus.

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White

Bruce is a bull, is he?

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Duxbury

He’s a castrated bull.Ìý Give me your hand…

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White

Yeah.

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Duxbury

… here he is.

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White

Hello Bruce.

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Duxbury

Hello, good day Peter.

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White

He’s a big ‘un, isn’t he?

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Duxbury

He’s only 10 months old.

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White

Is he?

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Duxbury

Yeah, he’ll grow into a very big boy, won’t you Bruce?Ìý All my animals friendly.Ìý Oh, get a big cuddle now, aren’t we Bruce?

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White

He’s biting my shirt.Ìý Hello Bruce.

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Duxbury

Yeah, he’s a big boy.

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White

He is.Ìý I mean from a point of view of managing the bull, what’s the technique that you use as a blind man?

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Duxbury

Very simply, regular handling.Ìý So, I can go into Bruce right now, he may come up to me, he may not but there’ll be no threatening behaviour because he’s used to my ways, I’m used to his ways and we respect each other.Ìý That means that if I ever have a problem or there’s a health issue the animals are used to me dealing with them, so I can get hands on and treat the problem.

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White

What about the sheer physical element of the farm?Ìý I mean I think you’ve done it more or less in a straight line but you have to know exactly where everything is, don’t you?

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Duxbury

Yes, you do.

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White

Yeah.

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Duxbury

Obviously, I set it out this way, I have always had a map in my head of how I wanted it because of ease of access for me.Ìý So, every frontage that we touch here, each pen has got a different frontage, so if the wind is windy and I get disorientated, I just touch the fence, I know exactly where I am.

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White

Why, because I mean a fence is a fence isn’t it?

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Duxbury

No, it’s not.Ìý So, at the moment we’ve got a rail and below that we have more rails and wire.Ìý But as you do down, you’ll see some have got wire all the way to the top, some have got different types of wire, so that we’ve got small holed wire, some big square wire and everything’s different.Ìý Where the goats are, it’s a picket fence.Ìý It looks the same because obviously people are not looking for that sort of difference because, like you said, a fence is a fence but ultimately, I’ve done it that way so it’s my own little navigation point, if you like.

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White

Yeah and we should say, I mean when you say I’ve done it that way, you actually built it, didn’t you?

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Duxbury

Yes, I built the whole farm from literally was a bare field two years ago, I drilled with a petrol hole borer, so all the seven paddocks, all the shelters, so directly in front of us now is a shelter for the cows, each paddock has got a shelter and I built all those and literally everything with my partner – she does the measuring and I do all the heavy work.

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White

That’s Ness, who we’ll meet.

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Duxbury

Who you shall meet.

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White

Yeah.Ìý I mean these are all skills, did you have all these skills when you came here?

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Duxbury

No, of course I didn’t, I didn’t have them all but, you know, as a blind person over the last 50 odd years of my life, one thing blind people are very good at is problem solving and because of that I think it gives us better skills to adapt to different environments and for me, it’s really paid off because yes, I use chainsaws, yes, I use power tools, yes, I drive my little tractor but I just happen to do it, perhaps, in a different way to a sighted person.Ìý But the end result is what’s here in front of you.

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White

Yeah, which is a fence.

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Duxbury

Which is a fence.

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White

I must just ask you about the chainsaw.

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Duxbury

Everybody asks about the chainsaw.

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White

Well, I can’t resist it because my wife wants a chainsaw, now she is fully sighted and I’m nervous about her having a chainsaw.

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Duxbury

Well, I was very fortunate you see, going through agricultural college you do learn to do things properly – safely.Ìý So, yes, I wear proper gloves, I wear goggles, even though, obviously, I’m not likely to lose my sight but it’s all about what you portray to other people around you that safety is still very crucial.

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White

Do you have any vision?

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Duxbury

No.

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White

No, none at all, right.

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Duxbury

Which is good actually because it means that my working day tends to be longer than my partner’s.

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White

Right, you don’t – you’re not worried about…

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Duxbury

I’m not governed by light.

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White

…the light fading or anything like that?

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Duxbury

No.Ìý But she said – oh you didn’t cut that post very straight.Ìý I said – it must have been dark when I did that one.

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Farm noises

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Duxbury

There’s a three bay barn I built.Ìý So, one’s got hay and straw in it one side, the middle one’s got all the food in and then the lefthand side has got a stack of wood and my little tractor.

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White

Ah, right.

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Duxbury

Okay, just getting on the tractor, ooh – getting too old for this.Ìý So, I use the tractor on a daily basis, so, this tows my little trailers which I carry the water on, hay for the cows and all the morning and evening feeds.Ìý [Tractor starting up]

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Ness

Come forward about four foot and then you go into reverse.Ìý Hold it there.

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Duxbury

There you are Peter, it’s only a little one.

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White

Oh, it’s a nifty little tractor.

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Duxbury

Oh, she is.

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White

Yeah, I imagined them much bigger than this.

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Duxbury

Yeah, well they can be bigger.

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Ness

Let Peter have a sit on.

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Duxbury

Yeah.Ìý I’ll get off the other side.

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White

Okay, let me clamber in.

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Duxbury

Clamber on.

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White

Okay.

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Duxbury

Would you like a drive?

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White

I’ve… it’s a long time since I…

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Ness

Right, well, there’s two ways we can do this.Ìý I can either hold a stick and you hold the stick and I just walk along by the side of you or I can yell at you or clap, like I do with Mike and you just follow the voice.Ìý

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Duxbury

The whole point of this farm is whether you’re blind or not you’re allowed to do what it is you choose to do.Ìý We don’t do can’ts, we don’t do cannots and we don’t do shouldn’ts or mustn’ts.Ìý Like we see the pig, the first time you held a pig and how old are you now?

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White

While I’m sat on the tractor this seems to be a good opportunity to ask you about that.Ìý How did that start because you know you wanted a farm, you got your acre but how did the inclusivity policy start because this is another strand to what you do, right?

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Duxbury

Yes.Ìý I mean basically this all started because a very good friend of mine in Scotland has got a brother who’s blind, who was denied access to go to agricultural college, although he was brought up on a family farm and had a lot of skills.Ìý And I thought, do you know something, it’s about time that somebody spoke up.Ìý So, when we built the farm, we built it a. because obviously I’m a farmer but b. it was built to be fully accessible from ground upwards, it wasn’t a place where lots of sighted people had come together and thought do you know what we can do for blind people, it was a place where myself, as a blind person, wanted to show the world, do you know, actually what we as blind people can do.Ìý And what we go out and talk to people about, what we bring people in is we want people to have the same hope, the same choices and the same rights as anybody else to make their own decisions but we have to sometimes do it differently.

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White

I mean I think this idea came from something that actually happened to you when you were a kid.

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Duxbury

We were sat in a classroom, at the age of seven, eight years old and the teacher said to us all – What do you want to be when you grow up?Ìý Of course, back in the day, it was I want to be a musician, physiotherapy, a piano tuner, basket weaver.Ìý And it got to myself and I said I want to be and only want to be a farmer.Ìý And there was this deathly silence.Ìý And the guy in question said – Well, that’s not something blind people do so, you know, think again.Ìý And I just went – We’ll see.

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White

And here we are on Inclusive Farm.

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Farm noises

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Ness

We go out and we do things…

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Duxbury

Ah so much together.

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Ness

We do out and look at cars, just because he likes cars.Ìý We upset a few people because – do you want a test drive?ÌýÌý Yeah, great, so Mike reaches into his wallet to go for his driving licence and they’re like – Whoa, whoa.

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White

Well, Ness, you’re Mike’s partner, how did you get roped into this situation?

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Ness

We actually met on the internet and we both agreed that one day in the future we would like to have a smallholding or just a piece of land.Ìý Never in a million years did I think that this tiny little piece of paper, that Mike gave me, a small paragraph about his idea and his ideals and what life should be for disabled people in general and this idea of opening a small farm, did I think it would ever get to this huge… huge thing that we’ve started, this snowball now?Ìý

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White

But it was also a blueprint of the farm itself wasn’t it and how it should look and…

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Ness

Yes, it was, we literally started, as I say, with a small piece of paper and I just took it and I took it and turned it into a 42-page business plan.Ìý Mike said to me, well I want it to look like this, want it to look like that and I said right, well, I don’t get what you’re looking at, I don’t have your inner vision.Ìý I can obviously physically see but my imagination is nowhere near as good as Mike’s.Ìý I went and got me some Lego and I said build me your farm and your farmyard and this is what we’ve got here is exactly what was in his head.Ìý So, no wonder he knows it so well, he knows it so well because he’s planned it exactly as he visualised it in his head.Ìý But getting into all this was a bit of a surprise.Ìý Being of simple background, I’ve always worked with children, young people with a disability, I’ve done fostering and worked in children’s homes but working with Mike, he’s probably the biggest child I’ve ever worked with because trying to keep up with his ideas, his vision, his just passion for life – music, farming, cars, engines, building.Ìý Oh, I’ve had an idea, he says and here we go again off another tangent.

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White

Does your heart sink when…

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Ness

Is it going to be a little eggshell or is this one going to be a big explosion like Inclusive Farm.

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White

But you said, you didn’t have a background in farming or know about farming, so, how much do you actually do on the farm itself?

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Ness

On the farm itself now, under Mike’s guidance, I can now look at the pigs and say yes, they’re getting close, they’re getting ready, Mike can you come and check them.Ìý I can actually… I probably can foot trim now quite well because he’s taught me to foot trim, he’s taught me how to drench the sheep.Ìý If Mike’s not around I can do the feeding and make sure everything’s got what it needs to have.

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White

And then there’s guiding the tractor…

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Ness

Guiding the tractor in – yeah, I mean, of course, it’s easy for me to jump on and drive it, where’s the fun in that?Ìý If he’s on his own, he can actually get that tractor from top of the field to the bottom but it just takes time and that’s all that people need to give other people is time, time and patience.Ìý He can do everything on the farm, I need help with lifting, I need help with checking that the animals are okay.Ìý We did have a problem with one of our sheep and we walked past the paddock and Mike said – we’ve got a problem, something’s happening in that field, I can smell it.Ìý And we had one with fly strike unfortunately and I couldn’t see it.Ìý We went in, we caught the sheep, lifted up the coat and there it was – had to cut it all out and get it all sorted.

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White

And how do you feel when Mike does something like, you know, picks up a chainsaw?

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Ness

I don’t panic, I really don’t worry because I don’t know if it’s ignorance on my behalf or not, I just don’t see Mike as blind.Ìý Unfortunately, to the point where I do lose him in shops occasionally and I’ve forgotten that he doesn’t know where he is because at home and here on the farm he knows where he is the whole time, so it’s an interesting life we lead.

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White

Is this the barn you built?

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Duxbury

Yes, it is.Ìý So, hoping it will stay up for a little bit longer.

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White

This is Inclusive Farm and you’ve explained why but you’ve got more plans coming up, I think?

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Duxbury

Yes, we are opening another site under the Inclusive Farm banner in Scotland.Ìý The demand for schools, collages, groups to learn more about the Inclusive Farm concept has been so overwhelming that we’re having to open another site just to cater for the groups of people that are demanding access.Ìý Here we can only do so many visits and so many schools and the rest of the time we have to obviously farm.Ìý So, we will be looking to open that in the next probably 12-18 months.Ìý For me the next progression is to build the Scottish one in conjunction with a group of disabled students, so they build the farm with me or under my instruction.Ìý Part of my roadmap is to have an Inclusive Farm in each principality.Ìý So, I am looking at Northern Ireland and Wales as well.Ìý I know, but you know, there’s disabled people everywhere and you know, one thing we’ve learnt from the emails, from the visits, from the contacts we’re getting, Bedfordshire can only do so much but we need to reach out and work with more.Ìý What we want to do in the future is work with schools and colleges to educate them that disabled people and blind people can do the same as many other people.Ìý A big part of why this farm is doing so well and why we’re developing and going forward is because there’s still a huge problem in the UK with the difference between talking about it, Peter and the difference between doing something about it.

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White

And that’s your… your aim?

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Duxbury

Yeah, stop talking, start doing.

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Tractor starting up

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White

I’ve forgotten what to do next.

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Duxbury

Now you release the pedal slowly.

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White

Okay, we’re moving.

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Duxbury

There you are, no worry, I’ll keep my feet out the way, I learnt the hard way.

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Ness

You’re going to turn it to one o’clock, that’s perfect.

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White

Oh good.Ìý This is quite exciting.

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Ness

Right, now left, so you want to go left, tight left now, it’s left as far as you can get that round, go on round you go, lots of muscle.

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Duxbury

Now release your foot and then I’ll do this.

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Tractor stopping

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Ness

I was going to let him just use the accelerator into the yard.

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White

No, don’t worry.Ìý I don’t need to do the accelerator into the yard.Ìý That was very enjoyable though.

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Duxbury

And now you know why we call it Inclusive Farm Peter.

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White

I do.

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