Presenter warns of public’s ‘disconnect’ with farmers

HELEN SKELTON, Springtime on the Farm presenter, has said there is a “massive disconnect” between farmers and the general public.

The host of the Channel 5 programme urged people to have greater respect for farming and encouraged the public to have a more open dialogue about where food comes from and how it is produced.

She said: “I obviously grew up on a farm, and have a huge amount of respect for farmers. But now I live on the edge of a city, and there’s a massive disconnect between food producers and the rest of the country.

“And it’s funny because I lived in France for a few years and it’s very different there.

“You go to the market and you ask the farmer there what you should get, and he tells you, and you buy it because that’s what’s best at that time of year.

“We don’t do that over here. Like, if we went into a supermarket and the guy behind the counter said, ‘You should eat this’, we’d tell them to mind their own business.

“I think that’s a shame.”

She hopes the programme, which is returning for its third series later this month, encourages respect for farming.

The show was scheduled to be broadcast live from a farm in Yorkshire, but producers have been forced to change their plan because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Richard Mortimer, series producer, said: “Luckily, a lot of the content has already been filmed over the past few weeks and, in these somewhat unusual circumstances, we have found a way to carry on without a single person in the production having to leave their homes.

“Helen will present from her Yorkshire country garden and Adam [Henson] from his Cotswold farm using high-quality iphone cameras.

“We won’t even be sending a crew so no one will be put at risk at all.”

Springtime on the Farm returns on Easter Monday at 8pm.