Helen Whittle, new CEO of AF, looks forward to the day that Clarkson joins our AF farmer co-operative.
“Jeremy Clarkson certainly understands collaboration. Top Gear centred on the calamitous camaraderie of three petrol heads. Now, Clarkson’s Farm entertains us all with the comical conversations between Clarkson the landowner, Charlie the advisor, Kaleb (who really knows how everything works) and his suppliers who keep the farm, the shop, his new pub and the whole show going."
"I firmly believe Jeremy Clarkson should join our farming co-operative. Our experts will save him hassle, time and money – so he can invest in whatever’s next …"
"Margins are constantly on Jeremy’s mind. As they are for all our AF Members. We’ve all been grateful for the way Clarkson’s farming shenanigans and awkward farm office conversations have revealed the precarious economics of farming for a living. But now even he’s realising that making a profit on the crops that he and other farmers produce is crucial. And his answer is to sell differently and together, whether in a farm shop, from a burger van or down the pub. The benefits of collaboration come to the fore once more!"
"In this latest season of Clarkson’s farm, Jeremy has set up a co-operative of suppliers to his pub The Farmer’s Dog with the intention of sourcing straight from farm to fork.
"From our vantage point in the farming community, we see benefits of collaboration everywhere. Like the neighbouring farmers who ran to help AF Member Patrick Barker with a field fire last month, quickly preventing a bad situation from getting much, much worse.
"Another recent example is from the Dyson farming business in Lincolnshire, where we took our Fresh AF group to see their approach to food production and agricultural research and development. It’s good to find that younger farmers and their advisors are more open to the co-operative mindset. One of the neatest examples of collaboration shown to us at Dyson’s farm at Carrington was how the engineering squad collaborated with the glasshouse division by designing never-before seen technology to take the strawberry yield to new heights.
Our Fresh AF '25 cohort seeing collaboration in action at Dyson
"Later this summer we’re taking the cohort to Arla’s UK headquarters in Leeds. They take the simple principle that Clarkson has discovered but they co-operate on a national, European and even global scale. We’ll witness how their manufacturing plant is collaborating with food designers to create new products with fresh milk from their UK dairy farming co-operative members, many of which are our Members too."
"There’s another value we share with Jeremy Clarkson: the business and personal value of gatherings, meetings of minds and other events where good ideas can be shared. It’s always been key to the success of co-operatives."
"We’ve done it since we started back in the 1970’s, to understand what inputs our farming Members need from us and how to get them for the best prices.
"So far this year we’ve had a productive time attending farmer events all over the UK. We’ve already drawn up our plans of where to be in 2026, including Cereals. Which in 2026 is hosted by none other than Diddly Squat Farm.
"So we’ll see you there Jeremy. Let’s talk business. Let’s start buying better, together.”
Whittle H. 2025. Why should Jeremy Clarkson join our co-operative? Eastern Daily Press. 2nd August.
