Ben Eagle

Searching for Common Ground at the ORFC and the OFC

I will be spending the next couple of days at the 10th Oxford Real Farming Conference and the 73rd Oxford Farming Conference and my mission is simple, but also overwhelmingly complex: to search for common ground between the two. How are these two conferences similar and how are they still fundamentally different? Is there aContinueContinue reading “Searching for Common Ground at the ORFC and the OFC”

17 Blogs and Podcasts to follow in 2019

With the year drawing to a close I thought I would highlight some blogs and podcasts that I highly recommend you check out in 2019. Whilst certainly growing, it is clear that nature, conservation, farming and countryside blogs are still one of the smaller niches within the wider blogosphere but there is some brilliant contentContinueContinue reading “17 Blogs and Podcasts to follow in 2019”

ThinkingCountry Christmas Message 2018

We live in times of division: wars and terrorist acts declared in the name of religion, Brexit splitting the UK down the middle into ‘Remainers’ and ‘Brexiteers’ and extreme inequality dictating the haves and have-nots. Uncertainty seemingly rules the roost, with nobody able to second guess where the political and social framework of the worldContinueContinue reading “ThinkingCountry Christmas Message 2018”

My review of 2018

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, and that’s why I enjoy writing end of year posts. What’s done is done and you can look forward to a new year which you can hope will bring the promised land, even though experience teaches us that every year is a rollercoaster in its own way, with troubled timesContinueContinue reading “My review of 2018”

Standing up to racism

I was really pleased when I opened my copy of Farmers Weekly earlier today to find that Executive Editor Philip Clarke had chosen to focus his editorial piece on standing up to the racist slur shown towards dairy vet Navaratnum Partheeban, who incidentally wrote a discussion piece here on thinkingcountry a couple of weeks ago.ContinueContinue reading “Standing up to racism”