Richard Negus – Author of Words from The Hedge & Keynote Speaker for Guild of Agricultural Journalists – Harvest Lunch
This week I had the privilege of attending the British Guild of Agricultural Journalists’ Harvest Service at St Bride’s Church and the Harvest Lunch at Stationers’ Hall – my first as a newly accepted member of the Guild. Thank you to the Guild for accepting my request to join. It was a brilliant gathering of writers, broadcasters, and photographers who care deeply about telling farming’s real story.
The very eloquent keynote speaker, Richard Negus (hedgelayer, writer, and author of Words from the Hedge), offered a provocative lens on the date 1851. That year saw the Arsenic Act – born of public concern over poisonings – and the repeal of the Window Tax, a small but symbolic victory for light and air in Britain’s homes. More importantly, 1851 is also the year historians mark as the point when Britain tipped from rural to predominantly urban. Was that, Richard asked, when we began to forget where food comes from – when everyday agricultural knowledge moved from being very well understood to a kind of mystery? Nine generations on, the urban share is now well over four-fifths of the UK population. Small wonder the public’s mental pictures of farming are often second hand and shaped by stock images, crisis headlines, and culture-war soundbites.
Richard made a simple, uncomfortable point: if a falsehood is well peddled, how would the public know it’s false? For too long, many of us have ceded the microphone. The “us vs. them” framing, he argued, is a dead end; in his travels with Words from the Hedge, he meets people of the general public who are curious, open, and keen to relearn about farming – if we meet them where they are. (And yes, popular culture has helped with the likes of Mr Clarkson; the gate is a little wider than it was.) Who tells the story, wins Richard states.
Richard’s halcyon call to the Guild was clear: don’t just write for the 20% who feel close to farming – write for the 80% who don’t. Take our collective craft into the mainstream. Explain, don’t preach. Show. Don’t spin. Tell the human reasons we farm and grow – the practicalities, the trade-offs, the triumphs. “Be assured, they will listen.”
That challenge lands squarely in our collective wheelhouse – and not just that of the agricultural journalism community. At Beanstalk Global, we’ll keep using photography and first-person stories to make farming visible again – pairing striking images with growers’ own words and taking those stories to platforms and audiences that rarely see them. If you have a story – from the field edge to the packhouse floor – get in touch. Let’s swap stock shots for real faces, real places, real food. As Richard states – “Who tells the story, wins”. Let’s make sure it’s ours.
Contact us at Beanstalk.Global to explore further. Email info@beanstalk.global or call Max MacGillivray on 01284 715055.