Kaleb Cooper: ‘I think farming chose me, in a weird way’

Clarkson’s Farm star Kaleb Cooper rose to fame after appearing on the hit TV farming show, which documents the highs and lows of running Diddly Squat – a 400ha farm in the Cotswolds.

Farmers Weekly caught up with the self-made agricultural entrepreneur to discover more about his farming background, how he balances day-to-day farming with his media obligations, his passion for cider-making and plans for the future.

Watch the interview or read it in full below.

See also: Kaleb Cooper launches RAU bursary for budding farmers

How much has your life changed since being on TV?

I wouldn’t say my life has changed massively, but some people say: “Well, you’ve got two books out now and a tour coming up.”

If you look at it in terms of what’s happened it’s a lot, but my day-to-day work has not changed an awful lot.

This morning I woke up, fed my cattle and did some slug pelleting, because the slugs are just demolishing the wheat this year.

Tomorrow I’ll be back out on the farm again. I’ve got to pick up some cows from a local farmer, and then, if the weather permits, I will go spraying.

How do you balance the media side of work with the day-to-day farming jobs and personal life?

I must admit my life is pretty busy. I have two kids now – a little boy who is two-and-a-half years old and a little girl who is four months. But as I’ve always said, farming is a way of life.

When I am farming, I’m still working on all the other stuff. When filming Clarkson’s Farm, I’m doing my day-to-day jobs.

I’ve also got GPS on all my tractors now, so I can make calls and book stuff.

I chose to go on tour in January, end of February, and a little bit of March because during these three months I’m hardly doing anything on the farm as it’s so wet out in the field.

So, I thought why don’t I go do something in the winter that involves travelling round the UK?

Tell us about your background

I didn’t come from a farming background, but I think farming chose me, in a weird way. I started farming at 13, helping out on a dairy farm.

I also set up my own business selling chicken eggs around Chipping Norton. I used to sell about 600 eggs a week.

I started to drop out of school because I could earn more money and learn more stuff on the farm.

You can learn so much in school, yes, but you don’t learn your VAT return, do you? I got hooked into farming.

But the school kept fining me. It was costing about £200 a month to pay these fines so the school called me in for negotiations.

They said: “Look Kaleb, you need to come into school – particularly for your GCSEs.” So I did.

Weirdly, for my GCSEs I chose drama, performing arts and art. I went back to school and was soon selling 18doz eggs to the teachers each week.

From then, I bought my first tractor at 15 and started my contracting business at 16, so I’ve always been a bit of an entrepreneur.

What’s it like working with Jeremy Clarkson and is Gerald really like he appears on TV?

It’s a pleasure farm alongside Jeremy because it is really good fun.

His brain being behind that steering wheel is the fun part, but it is very annoying too. He drives me mad; if only he would just listen to me.

He has got better over the years. He’s got a little knowledge now, which is dangerous, but he’s getting there.

We’re now four years into farming together, and annoyingly he is getting quite good. It starts more arguments as he will have done something I wanted to do.

And Gerald has a typical countryside accent. He’ll say something like: “Man United won the other day wheat looks good.

I’ll think, “Well, let’s put a full stop in there. Yes, Man United played well the other day. And the wheat does look good.” I’ve mastered it.

What’s your proudest moment on the farm?

At the end of the year, when you’ve got the harvest in and you sit there and look at the shed filled with gold – wheat, barley and oilseed rape.

I think, “I’ve grown that all year, nursed it all year and now it’s in the shed and can be sold for bread, oil and lager.” That’s my proudest moment.

How can we promote British agriculture and attract young people into farming?

I’ve set up a bursary to help young farmers (the bursary offers £3,000 to support a Royal Agricultural University student pursue a career in agriculture).

If I can help somebody get into farming, or support them along their journey, that would really mean the world to me.

I also got invited to 10 Downing Street [for the Farm to Fork summit] and discussed farming with Rishi Sunak.

If I can be a face for farming and talk about farming and bring it to Downing Street, then I’ve done something good.

How did you get involved with the Hawkstone cider-making business?

It was two years ago when Jeremy said he was going to make a lager. I don’t really like lager; I’ve always been a cider drinker myself. 

I thought, why not go out there and team up with someone who makes a really good cider?

I knew I didn’t want to use concentrate because the majority of places use concentrate and wet it down with water to make cider. 

I wanted to use British apples grown with high standards and that’s when we teamed up with Guy Lawrence from Weston’s Cider.

Tell us about the cider-making process

We harvest apples every day from the end of September to end of November – 40,000t is what we will harvest in these months.

The apples are transported to the mill in lorries. After they have been pressed, the juice is put in oak barrels, where it is fermented for six months or more.

The only ingredients are water, apples, champagne yeast and a little bit of sugar.

Why are you keen to promote more apple orchards in the UK?

The government keeps telling us to plant more trees, so why not plant [a fruit orchard] that’s going to make a bit of money and provide food and drink?

We only have so much land in England; we can’t keep building on it and not farming it.

What do you hope the next five years will bring?

When I was 13, my goal was to be my own boss, which I achieved by the time I was 16.

My goal at the moment is to buy my own farm; hopefully I can make this happen, but farms are a lot of money, so who knows.

The day I walk out the front door of my house on my own farm and say to my little boy:

“We’re going to plant wheat in that field because I want to, not because someone else has told me to,” that’s the day I think I will have made it.