Opinion: Blackpool Young Farmers minority demonstrate ‘toxic culture’
© Adobe Stock Photos of young farmers at Blackpool were all over my social feed the week I was at a conference in Amsterdam about the future of food.
I was listening to an American decrying the lack of young people coming into the sector. She could only see further consolidation and more institutions buying up land because the “next generation” were missing.
She thought this was a problem everywhere, so I was pleased to tell her that at that moment, there was a whole next generation of British young farmers “having it large” and reaffirming their cultural bonds in Blackpool. I remember feeling quite proud of them.
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So when a friend sent me a link to local coverage of the event, I was appalled to see some of the T-shirts.
Not everyone is born with a natural gift for one-liners and puns (even though farming is littered with opportunities for them) and clearly some of our youngsters got it badly wrong.
Lads, rape is not funny. Ever. Farmers Weekly is absolutely right to call it out.
Calling out the few is not tarnishing the whole, but the comments on the social media posts say a lot about how a toxic culture perpetuates through the farming generations.
If you’re a male farmer of a certain age and you’re justifying offensive slogans and sexual assault in young farmer culture because “it’s always been like this”, then you’re part of the problem.
No one should have any issue with young farmers doing what young people do everywhere. I went to university; I had more than my fair share of fun.
Boundaries are pushed, most of the stolen property was returned, and everyone lived to tell the tale.
Like a lot of my generation, though, I’m very glad that social media hadn’t been invented yet. Reputations are still ruined and self-confidence destroyed by bad people and bad choices.
More broadly, I don’t want the young farming tribe to be self-identifying with toxic masculinity traits, as this spreads into what the general public think of farmers everywhere.
More importantly, the testosterone-fuelled drinking culture acts as a massive barrier to anyone who doesn’t fit the stereotype, and it also spreads into attitudes towards education, working practices on farm, and animal welfare. We need to normalise something much kinder.
Farming sometimes seems to be a generation behind where the rest of society has got to.
I’d like to think that the pockets of dumbness on show in Blackpool are the dying embers of a bad idea that is about to be swept away by a glorious new dawn of people being nice to each other, but I
doubt it.
We do need to keep trying, though. Friendship, banter, community and connection are all brilliant. Overtly sexualised, threatening and abusive behaviour is not.
Young Farmers’ Clubs do so much good; it’s critical that the wider farming community shows the minority few a better way.
So, my advice to the next generation of women in farming – I’m all for women being empowered to make their own choices and it’s no one’s business to judge you for partying harder than the boys.
But you have a choice not to aim low. As someone once said, women who want to be equal to men lack ambition.